golden-ager

Although he earns a tidy sum even when he loses to ferocious midgets or golden-ager grapplers, he wants to prove he has what it takes to rank with the greats.

Designed as a prequel to Friedkin's film (and William Peter Blatty's enormously popular novel), "Exorcist: The Beginning" harkens back to a period when Father Lankester Merrin (portrayed as golden-ager in original pic by Max Von Sydow) took an extended sabbatical from the priesthood.

Even video-game arcades, long a bastion of youth, are wooing golden-agers with benches for resting; arcade staffers are encouraged to get certified as senior-friendly"service assistants." The most intriguing product, though, may be engay food.

According research by The University of Manchester and NatCen Social Research, who questioned 7,000 people over 70, golden-agers are still a frisky bunch.

From tweens and teens to golden-agers, everyone wanted to help, to do something to help America, and many did, each in their own fashion.

This is fiction-oriented since we Golden-Agers like to think we still have "it," and can still attract a lover or someone akin to such a possibility (a good look in the mirror tells otherwise).

And, how will the consumer strategists address the 76 million members of the coming "mature market?" Don't call them golden-agers. Don't call them seniors or gray hairs.

PHOTO : The "Golden-Agers," members of the Chicago South Side YMCA fitness program for seniors, take a brisk walk around an indoor track.

Which is fine by me, except that nobody ever seems to offer us golden-agers tips on how to dress - just how to handle our money, stay healthy, keep fit, and do crossword puzzles every day so we don't suddenly run dry in the memory department.

There are the memories of the golden-agers who met and lunched there for several years and Water Department members who managed the town's vital resource from the yellow building on the hill.