Don’t call them old.
They’re in their “third age.”

by Joanne O’Sullivan . photo by Brent Fleury

If you want to retire and play golf, go to Palm Springs or Palm Beach. If you want to dye your hair pink and make pottery, come to Asheville. For more than two decades, the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement on the UNCA campus has been developing leading-edge programs for seniors, offering classes in everything from silent film to balloon sculpting. In June, Catherine Frank took the center’s top post after a three-year stint as director of Duke University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

First, the buzz was about seniors pursuing an active retirement. Now, in the downturn, people are putting off retirement indefinitely. What’s next? The baby boomers have changed the way we think about things at every phase of life…The expectation has been that in retirement, boomers would reinvent themselves in second careers. The economy has changed the expectation somewhat, but baby boomers have always been creative. I think we’ll see them prove that working in the “third age” can be a positive thing.

Is “third age” a new term? It’s a term that’s used frequently, more in Europe than in this country…You go through the first age of learning as a child, and your second age is your career and family. The third age is the age of retirement. Usually.

You’re not a senior yourself. Why work with older people? I’m 52, so technically, I’m the tail end of the baby boom generation. But I had my first child at 44, so I’m often around younger parents. I think I tend to span generations.

What challenges come with running a center like this one? People in these programs are self-selecting—many have been academics or have advanced degrees. But I love the businessman who’s never studied literature in his life and is trying to figure out what it is about Tess of the D’Urbervilles that gets to him.