Go south, old (broke) man
Retiring abroad! It’s like tacking a dragon’s tail onto the withered hindquarters of that 9-to-5 life you led for 40 years. See, you say to your kids, I still thirst for adventure. See, I’m willing to negotiate back alleys in a tropical city where no one speaks my language, just to eat at a...
>60 R2R2R
Darkest January. You have been indoors too much. You’ve counted the fireplace bricks. You know how many paces it is from wall to wall. The terrible and terrifying stories of cabin-fevered trappers suddenly seem plausible. You’re not capable of dismembering anyone. But you can understand how it could happen. Not should. Not yet....
Fauja Singh: don’t want to look, can’t turn away
When you’re, say, 50, it’s easy to feel like you’re dull. Uninteresting. You can feel invisible. So when you find something that puts you in high relief, that gives you an identity—especially if you excel at it and it demonstrates what a complete badass you are—you’re going to hold on to it. No. More...
Looking for SWF with DRD4 7R allele?
Let’s say you are single. You’re reading over the entries on Match.com and thinking about a partner for life’s Second or Third Act. Are you looking for a profile that says, “Get with me. I’m likely to die quick, but our time together will feel long because I am dull”? No, you are not. You...
Afternoon workouts work best. Maybe.
The popular press has a wealth of information on fitness. But if you are over 50, your reading will often leave you feeling confused or unsure. This is because so many studies focus on younger people and you know better than to generalize. Good health and fitness guidance for a 12-year-old might not true for...
Here’s to unlimited new years
The time between the holidays is odd. You wake up the day after Christmas and it’s all over except the returns. There’s a morning-after sadness, the hangover that follows a binge on sentimentality and anxiety and, yes, genuine good cheer toward men. You’ve kissed all the cheeks and patted the backs and now we all...
You should be embarrassed if you never feel awkward
You arrive in a new place—say, New York or New Delhi—and you don’t know there’s cheap public transportation from the airport to the city center. You take a cab, pay an exorbitant ransom to be released at your hotel, then realize you could have done it faster/cheaper/more comfortably by bus or subway. But you didn’t...
You don’t want anything for Christmas
Young people hate old people for many reasons, most of them justifiable. This time of year they hate us because there is no obvious gift for us. We have most of what we want. What we don’t have we can live without. If we are going to get something more, we very particular about what...
Alan Simpson gets after AARP
As we speed toward the fiscal cliff—with its radical cuts in spending and steep tax hikes and, if you believe the press, the recession that combo will inevitably cause—the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson Plan has been getting a lot of renewed attention. (Including an interesting Atlantic article today, which notes that report of the National Commission...
Is skiing an old person’s sport?
Young snowboarders were once considered the saviors of the ski industry. Without that influx of stoked shredders (the reasoning went), the mountains would have reverted to empty, windswept wastelands. Abandoned chairlifts rusting in the thin mountain air. The Boomers who had built the industry in the 60s and 70s were now too old and feeble....
What does “Age Against the Machine” mean?
CNN is running a collection of articles about Baby Boomers. They are calling it “Boomers: Age Against the Machine.” We assume it’s a play on the name of the rap metal band Rage Against the Machine, a group that formed in the early 1990s, which is long after most Boomers stopped paying attention to new...
If you love America, go skiing.
Remember after 9/11, when George Bush advised America to go shopping? For the good of the country and the economy. Because purchasing power is power, after all. And power should be exercised. Against the terorists. (Sidebar: You don’t need Don Draper to sell this message; most Americans accepted it intuitively. If your way of...
