WASHINGTON SPIN DIN

Bush Turns 60; Doesn’t Switch Bicycle For Cane

Defying the ageism that afflicts the everyday American consciousness and relegates some of our best and brightest to slinking off to a premature twilight, Mr. Bush, upon reaching his 60th, said, “I feel great!”

While the boomer conceded that the event was “dramatic,” he went on to say, “I feel pretty young. I’m surprised I feel so good. I can remember when I was a kid looking at people 60. I said, ‘Man, there goes an ancient person.’ But I feel great.”

Laura Bush said the biggest difference was his gray hair. "He hasn't really changed that much," she enthused.

Apparently, he’s been working on his mental adjustment to the milestone for some time. In June he said at a community college in Omaha, "I'm not supposed to talk about myself, but in a month I'm turning 60. For you youngsters, I want to tell you something. When I was your age, I thought 60 was really old. It's all in your mind. It's not that old; it really isn't."

Fortunately, he’s not the only oldster in America with a sense of well-being. A recent study by AARP, the outfit that serves and frequently underserves older people found that nearly 77 percent of gringos turning 60 said they were satisfied with their lives overall.

So Mr. Bush seems in step with his peers and, in fact, a bit ahead of most of them.

Dr. Kenneth Cooper, a Dallas fitness expert who is one of the president's doctors, said that Bush had "an amazing aerobic capacity" and that his performance on treadmill stress tests put him in the top 1 percent of men his age.

Well, let’s come forward and wish the guy a happy birthday – while we hope his often ebullient persistence helps undermine the ageism that will relegate less influential baby boomers to a shamefully premature drop into the reject bin.

We might also hope that any year now he might become at least a bit self-reflective and, in that welcome process, more open to advice, particularly in his chancier inclinations.

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