AGE IS NO BARRIER

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Have you noticed something funny going on around the country? Everybody is growing older, but nobody seems to be aging.

Stephani Cook, who follows social and marketing trends for a New York City advertising agency, has seen it--and felt it. "People 50 to 75 don't think of themselves as old," says Cook, who is an executive vice president of Lowe & Partners/SMS. "I'll be 53 next month. My daughter just turned 29, and we have a lot more in common than not. We wear the same things and eat the same things, and I'm in better shape than when I was 30. The notion that there is some sort of break at 50 is meaningless."

Thomas Wyatt couldn't agree more. Wyatt, 73, a retired Army colonel who lives in Clinton, Miss., has been writing a novel, counseling rape victims and studying to become a deacon in the Episcopal Church. That's when he isn't cooking and cleaning house or taking care of his 12-year-old daughter Nicole while his second wife teaches nursing at a nearby medical school. "I always had things that had to be done, and I just kept doing them," says Wyatt, whose career includes decorated service in World War II, Korea and Southeast Asia, plus a doctorate in sociology. "The weeks and years and months went by, and I never thought of myself as changing."

Wyatt and Cook belong to different generations, but they share attitudes that are on the rise today--across the U.S. and across its generations. To be sure, a century of medical progress has enabled Americans to live longer on average and enjoy greater health and prosperity. But even more significant, the traditional demarcation points between youth and age are starting to blur. Amid images of George Bush parachuting out of a plane at 72 and baby boomers blowing out the candles on their 50th-birthday cakes, a growing number of citizens (call them seniors at your own risk) are radically redefining what it means to be old.

The widening gap between the chronological age of Americans and their psychological, physiological and cultural age is upending traditional notions of work and family. That in turn is affecting the marketplace. By the year 2000, according to a White House-sponsored conference on aging, Americans 55 or older will have twice the discretionary income of those between 18 and 34, and the leaders of some large corporations are starting to pay heed. "It's very important for us to go where the purchasing power is," says Michael H. Jordan, chairman and CEO of Westinghouse/CBS, whose CBS unit airs hits like Touched by an Angel (featuring a helpful celestial spirit) that have made it the top network with viewers 55 or older. "We ought to call this the Willie Sutton strategy," says Jordan, referring to the legendary safecracker who said he robbed banks because that's where the money was.

Several major currents have been rushing together to turn the aging of America into a demographic and marketing tidal wave. A child born today can expect to live to age 76 on average--up from just 47 in 1900. And people who are now 65 have the prospect, on average, of 17 more years ahead of them. No age group has been growing faster than men and women 85 or older, whose numbers have nearly tripled to 4 million since 1960.