September 21, 2005
Age of the Geezer

Timing is everything and finally, for yours truly, it’s “big casino”.  In a life filled with big misses and way to many, “ifa, coulda, shoulda woulda’s” it’s time to yell out, “Bingo!”  

What misses?  Well for starters, I was born 10 years to early to participate in the sexual revolution.  No over thirty guys were allowed in that army, especially when they were married with children.  And while fortunes were made buying Aspen real estate that would eventually grow ten fold, I was struggling to stay above water with house payments on a simple Grand Junction abode.  I came close on the dot com boom.  Oh I missed the run-up in dot com stocks back in the nineties but jumped in with both feet just in time for the run-down. But today, right now, yours truly is smack dab in the middle of the next great boom, the Geezerfication of America. 

Fortune magazine terms America’s coming boom the “grey revolution”.  “Geezerfication” is more to the point.  Get used to it, you 49 and unders, you’re about to be waist deep in grey haired grandma’s and bald guys with potbellies. 

Want proof?  According to the article in Fortune, “two-thirds of all the men and women who have ever lived past 65 in the entire history of the world are alive today.”  Fortune was quoting a guy named Ken Dychtwald, who lectures major corporations on how to deal with geezerfication for fun and profit, mostly profit.  Dychtwald, in his younger days a “tune in and drop out” member of the 70’s counterculture somewhere along the line styled himself an expert on the over 60 set.  

Mr. Dychtwald is quoted, “The 50-plus population has 70% of all the wealth in the country and 80% of all the money in savings institutions.  Sixty-six cents of every dollar in the equity markets is invested by people over 50”.  So why do we get all the discounts? 

When does old age start?  Current surveys find people over 50 feel it begins somewhere in the vicinity of 80.  My mother has always maintained  “old” is ten years beyond your current age.  Since she is hale, hearty and opinionated at 92 her measuring stick starts old around the century mark.  

Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D. have combined to write a terrific book, Younger Next Year, backing up with scientific data the fact folks today can live to age 80 with the vitality of a 55 year old by following a few simple steps.  Hint; hours on end wallowing in a La-Z-Boy ain’t a part of the plan, 45 minutes a day of aerobic exercise and lifting weights 2-3 times a week is.  

For super active members of the “grey revolution”, there’s a new magazine, Geezerjock.   It’s dedicated to the over 50 athlete.  (Go to www.Geezerjock.com as free subscriptions are still available as of this writing.)  Don’t think there’s an audience?  This summer over 10,000 athletes, 50 years of age and older, showed up for the National Senior Games in Pittsburgh.   

While a Pennsylvania radio station did a fake news report saying the games had been cancelled because they were scheduled at the same time as Matlock re-runs, the fact of the matter was that in track and field, cycling and the tri-athalon, athletes over the age of 70 achieved times that twenty years ago were only accomplished by the 40-50 age group.