On a morning news show recently, a couple in their 80s told about serving in the Peace Corps six times and now are waiting in Seattle for a call about their seventh tour that will lead them who knows where. The distinguished looking man is an engineer, and his wife, a psychologist. They had joined the Peace Corps after their children left home and found their travels interesting, their service rewarding. They encouraged more seniors to follow suit.

That surely sounds better than playing Bingo in a community center somewhere in central Florida where campers and mobile homes house thousands of AARP members who save money by eating dinner before 5:30 p.m. and go to movie theaters in the middle of the day.

Nothing is wrong with that scenario but it doesn’t fit everybody, any more than the Peace Corps does or being a greeter at Wal-Mart or providing valet parking at the local hospital. Or going on one cruise after another.

Not everyone grows old the same way: Besides, what is “old”: 70, 80, 90? Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.”

That’s what plenty of folks are nowadays, 70 – or 80 – or even 90 years young. The other day, a friend described the sheer glee on his mother’s face – she is 91 – when riding from her home to an assisted living facility in a convertible, no less.

Then, there’s a stylish woman in her mid-80s I know who still enjoys her daily swim in the chilly ocean near her summer house on the Massachusetts coast; and the dear friend in his late 80s who plays golf every decent morning before spending the bulk of the day grooming his yard or walking miles around the point.

Hardly a day goes by without my remembering a former editor who came to the office every day into his 90s, crediting an inquiring mind – and a daily bowl of stewed rhubarb – for his longevity.

What happened to merely being an “old coot,” as Down Easters called their elderly neighbors, letting the matter rest at that?

It’s because these old folks aren’t old at all; they’re ageless. The men around here don’t retire from fishing; they paint buoys and set traps as long as there are lobsters to catch. They saw wood as long as their stoves need stoking. The elderly women do their canning and jarring as long as their gardens produce and the berries ripen. They do their chores the same as they always did; it just takes a bit longer.

The sign on their house may say “Broken Back Acres” or “Amen Farm,” but they don’t really mean it. They haven’t given up their zest for life and are not about to.

They may be bone tired at the end of the day, but they’re not old.