What kind of mixed message is that? If I play every day, my life is not properly allocated and I am not diversified. It appears to be a common assumption that every person who retires is ready to spend the next 25 years playing golf, fishing, going to casinos and baby-sitting grandchildren.

Advertising agencies and PR firms have created a new market where one did not exist during our parents’ day. We are the new market, every one of us 55 years and older. They are targeting us, wining and dining us and trying their darnedest to sell us just about everything. Men and women preparing to transition through life after 55 and/or retirement are being talked about, analyzed and fawned over in every boardroom on Madison Avenue.

We have become the most valuable consumer. Every one has a product for us to buy and a place for us to spend our money. Financial advisors are inviting us to seminars that serve refreshments so they can advise us about investments, dispersing our wealth and passing it onto the next generation. Funeral directors offer us pre-paid, pre-planned exits from this world.

Developers entice us to move to condos and maintenance-free living. The medical profession offers Botox, vascular surgery and hair replacements.

Two separate pharmaceutical firms ran ads on TV for solutions to erectile dysfunction during the postseason baseball games. Each firm paraded a bevy of seemingly 50-plus men across the screen who testified by their big smiles and the beautiful women at their sides that life is good. 

Are men and woman over 50 the only people in America watching the postseason games of America’s most beloved sport of all ages and genders? Try and explain these continuous ads to your nine and 10-year-old grandsons.

Why are we being called to attend “mature living seminars”? What kind of living have we been doing for the past 40 some years – raising families, earning a living, getting advanced degrees, planning graduations and weddings, caring for ill family members, paying mortgages, volunteering in the community and paying taxes. If that isn’t mature living, what is?

Beware of the snake-oil salesman, he still travels the countryside. He uses a number of tricks and stunts. First the advance men come to herald his arrival with circus-like fanfare. Entertainment and other diversions are used to attract audiences. Eventually you are treated to the "lecture," better known as the commercial. The commercials are for lightweight vacuum cleaners, calcium supplements, assisted living communities, health care insurance, and many other products.

Today, the snake-oil salesman may also come in the form of phone solicitation, Internet advertisements on every Web page and a continuous barrage of slick flyers. These flyers show lovely, always well-dressed women (who seldom have any gray hair) with tall, broad-shouldered men (who have full heads of beautiful gray hair). Who are these people?  Aren’t we past the time when fairy tales have a big draw?

I don’t know about you but I like living in real time. This is an exciting time with all kinds of possibilities.  Of course we don’t want to miss out on opportunities, so we may easily be taken in by an advertisement or commercial that sounds good. Most often the information or product being presented to you is legitimate and reliable. But sometimes we lack the opportunity to consult about our decisions with family members, because we are alone or they are not near. 

However, if there is anything we have more of than ever, it is time. We suggest you always take the time to carefully research offers before you make a decision, sign on the dotted line or write a check.

Remember what Marshall McLuhan had to say about advertising in the 60s, “We become what we behold.” Maybe I’ll go out and buy a pair of Tummy Tuck TM jeans,  “made for real women with real curves” (worn in an ad by a 50ish  woman with no gray hair).