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Suddenly Senior

Ignore magazines, accept your age

By FRANK KAISER
Published July 26, 2005

Have you noticed that magazines are pushing us to be younger, more energetic, robust and, less like who we really are.

Almost daily some magazine cover screams: "70 is the new 50!" or "75 - The new 45?"

Women's magazines sell the notion that aging is an aberration, a needless divergence into an unnecessary and repulsive hell. Follow this diet or that beauty routine, or use this face cream or that plastic surgeon and, viola! - spring forever.

America's obsession with all things young is starting to drive me nuts.

It was bad enough when the hip and fashionable editors at People, US, Talk and the National Enquirer simply ignored anyone over 40. But market forces prevailed and when a good chunk of their audience began tripping over 40 then 50, 60 and beyond - advertisers and editorial pretensions followed.

It all started when magazines began naming geezers like Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood as the "Sexiest Man Alive."

Sexiest, as in virile and manly?

If that's true, I'll have what they're having.

As the nation braced for the naming of Clint and Sean's sexiest female counterparts, no one questioned the sanity of it all.

What were they thinking?

Does anyone recall: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

Being 69 and more or less acting my age is just fine with me. In fact, it's just about the best time of my life.

However, there is probably truth in "90, the new 2."

I've noticed some older folks returning to their terrible twos, thinking only of themselves, demanding the world, and screaming whenever things don't go their way. But these adult diaper-wearing brats never really graduated from the callowness of youth in the first place. And they finally tired of faking it.

As for me, I can't imagine 90 anymore than I could 69 when I was 50, or 50 when I was 30.

But with life getting better with every year, I can't wait. If only those magazine editors understood that, think how much happier their lives and those of their readers would be.

Frank Kaiser is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in Clearwater. His Web site, www.suddenlysenior.com includes nostalgia, trivia, senior humor and 111 Best Senior Links. Write Frank c/o Seniority, the St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail features@sptimes.com

[Last modified July 22, 2005, 11:20:06]