Rusty Saber: Post mid-life crisis sets seniors to revving their engines

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Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.|ret||ret||tab|

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It seems that many retirees are experiencing a second mid-life crisis. The first usually comes around age 40.|ret||ret||tab|

A second one seems unusual. I don't know what label sociologists may have given to it. Let's call it a post mid-life crisis.|ret||ret||tab|

Apparently, some seniors retirees are up for such things as having ego enhancing plastic surgeries, running marathons and wearing youthful clothing. They are buying Harley-Davidsons and sports cars.|ret||ret||tab|

It was sports cars that grabbed my attention. Oldsters are trying to coax the youth genie out of the bottle by driving sports cars? I must be out of step; I did just the opposite. I became a sports car junkie early in my life. I am still attracted to them, but a diabolical disk in my back whispers into my ear: "Drive a large, comfortable car or else I will make your life miserable!"|ret||ret||tab|

One person was responsible for two of my lifelong passions: jazz and sports cars. His name was Bill; we were young sailors stationed in California. He had no idea about the effect on my life he would have. Bill was the first sophisticated person I ever knew. At that point in my life, my understanding of sophistication came from Cary Grant movies. Bill was raised in the San Francisco Bay area and wore his hair in as much of a ducktail as the Navy would stand for, which automatically painted him with the brush of sophistication. He was a fan of jazz and sports cars. |ret||ret||tab|

Bill instilled in me an ear for good jazz and taught me to shop for albums recorded by the best jazz artists. I'm grateful to him for my love of jazz. I knew nothing about sports cars until Bill intrigued me with stories of how there were cool race cars that could also be personal cars. And, they were beautiful. At the time, British sports cars were the only affordable ones. |ret||ret||tab|

Names like MG, Triumph, Austin-Healey and Sunbeam Alpine were in my dreams. Jaguars were too expensive for my dreams. Please understand, I love Britain. With the exception of the unpleasantries circa 1776 and 1812, the British have always been America's best friend and ally. They made beautiful sports cars that set my heart aflutter, but it doesn't surprise me that they don't make them today. They weren't very good. |ret||ret||tab|

During my lifetime, I have owned two MGs, a Sunbeam Alpine and a Triumph TR-6. I had a love-hate relationship with them all. They were beautiful little cars; the deep throated sound they made when shifting gears could bring tears to my eyes. Tears also came to my eyes when doing such things as putting the top up, an unbelievable job. Actually, it didn't matter much if the top was up, because they leaked like a sieve. Forget driving in even light snow. A lack of traction in snow didn't matter; they wouldn't start when the temperature was below 30 degrees. |ret||ret||tab|

I once owned a Porsche. It resembled the British cars in that it was beautiful, and half of the time, I drove it; the other half of the time it was at the repair shop. It finally took a Japanese-made Mazda RX7 to scratch my sports car itch. |ret||ret||tab|

I'm all for those seniors who are driving flashy sports cars. If I were to partake in a post mid-life crisis, there are a few sports cars that I still lust after from afar. |ret||ret||tab|

The last I heard of Bill, he owned a jazz music bar in Oakland and was purported to be driving a Jaguar XKE. Didn't I say he was sophisticated?|ret||ret||tab|

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