Active lives defy aging: Generation redefines society's expectations for growing older
[6 May 2006 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel] Debbie Schwartz is 50, looks 40 and "feels 38, max!" She rides a Harley, fancies herself a "blue jeans and T-shirt girl, just like in high school," and for pure enjoyment likes nothing better than stretching, bending and breathing through 90-minute yoga sessions. "I look at the age, 50, and I say, 'that's not me,' " says Schwartz, a mortgage banker from Fox Point. Schwartz is part of the massive wave of American baby boomers who feel younger than their years, a wave that over the decades will all but shatter the notion of what it means to be old in America. This isn't about how baby boomers are refusing to grow up, let alone grow old. They are getting old and know it. But what is happening is nothing short of a redefinition of aging in America and everything that goes with it, from work to retirement to selling goods to a generation with cash and clout. ...