Look out! Here comes another post of positivity as only I can deliver it!

Do you see those commercials on TV for laxatives, or calcium and vitamin supplements? There's an older man who looks a bit like John Forsyth from Dynasty, with a head full of wavy, silver hair, a barrell chest and nearly-flat stomach. He's holding hands on the beach with his high school sweetheart, who's spine is still straight and stride is still sure. They contemplate the setting sun over the ocean on a clear evening, knowing their own sunset is turning out just as beautiful.

Well, from first-hand observation, I can tell you this portrayal of life over 55 is largely a production company fabrication.

My dad ate vitamins and aloe vera all his adult life and began working out fanatically in his late 50's. When he was 62 he celebrated his birthday at the gym by bench pressing 275 lbs. not once, but twice. The health consciousness seemed to have paid off. Then four years ago, when he was 66, he had a heart attack. He's still among us, but now he sits in a chair asleep most of the time. He complains of feeling tired constantly. He went from having enviable biceps (he said a 26 year old at the gym told him he stopped working out for awhile because he was tired of being out-lifted by a 62 year old) to now looking close to the 70 years he is.

Then there's my aunt, circa 65, who would never have been accused of taking care of herself. Time is catching up to years of eating BC headache powder, RC Colas and prescription medication like candy. Oh, yes -- and smoking loads and loads of Winstons! Now she's got emphysema, a benign spinal tumor, some sort of condition giving her purple blotches, spontaneous fainting and falling down, sometimes more than once a day. It's something new every time we hear from her.

New on the horizon is my cousin who's about 63. Decades ago she got what was thought to be a very mild head injury in a car wreck, but time is magnifying it. My mom says she calls up and asks stuff like, "Where was I born? What was my mother's maiden name?" Now it's been learned, after a brain scan, that her brain has atrophied to the level of an 85-year-old, though I would swear I've spoken to 85-year-olds who were more congnizcant.

Then, of course, I get a heavy dose of people over 55 calling into the call center who already seem like they should be in a home on a IV drip, where they can't endanger themselves and annoy the rest of us.

(Hey, are you depressed yet?) SO...Dancing with the Stars is a piece of pure TV cheese, akin to Love Boat in it's heyday. However one of the judges, British guy Len Goodman, really lifted my spirits more than he could imagine. A former dance champion himself, in a segment last week they showed him stopping by the studios where the contestants were practicing. At 63 you would figure Goodman's days of fleet-footedness were well behind him, but it was so encouraging. That guy showed he could still kick those feet around like the 20- and -30 somethings competing could only dream of doing! When he said, "Heel-toe, heel-toe, with the foot pointed outward!," he said it with authority, because that's exactly how he did it!

So I will go forward with the image of Len Goodman and his foxtrot in my mind. Perhaps I should push myself away from this computer and work on the paso doble.