60 And Having A Mid-Life Crisis?

The day begins for George Ortenzi the way it might for many 61-year old men: A small breakfast, and his pills. But that's where the similarities probably end.

Ortenzi spends his days zipping around in his Corvette convertible, the fulfillment of a teenage dream.

Wait! Getting a hot new sports car, changing jobs, leaving your family, - we've come to associate it all with 40-something men going through a mid-life crisis.

But The Early Show's Debbye Turner reports that the mid-life crisis isn't reserved solely for the middle aged.

More and more Americans once headed for the rocking chair are saying, 'No way.' Instead, they'e re-inventing their lives, changing their careers, their lifestyles, even their looks in their 60s and 70s.

"I turned a few heads," Ortenzi says with a smile, referring to the reaction he and his car get from ladies. "But that's about as far as it goes and then they get a look at the old guy behind the wheel."

With a daily dusting, and frequent washings and waxings for his car, Ortenzi acts like a kid in a candy store.

"My age stops when I get behind that wheel," he says. "I'm not old any more."

It has all the trappings of a mid-life crisis; just don't say that to Ortenzi.

"I don't consider it a crisis at all," he says. "It's just, go out and get it, I'm driving it, and enjoying myself. It's no crisis."

AARP's Hugh Delehanty says that there is evidence that 60- and 70-year olds are having late or even second mid-life crises.

"This generation is really interested in being cool," Delehanty notes. "They want to be alive, for one thing; they also want to look good for their age. They don't necessarily look 23, but mostly they want their life to mean something."

Life expectancy could be a factor: Today, the life expectancy in the U.S. is almost 77 years old, compared to just over 63 in 1939. No wonder people in their sixties feel they have a new lease on life.

Delehanty says, "People are now addressing the problem of what to do with the second half of their life differently, and in new ways from the way their grandmother did and their parents, and all of that stuff."

Sixty-two year-old Vicki Ianucelli is most definitely doing things differently from her grandmother.

Her definition of an old person is "someone who has given up and doesn't make any efforts to change the course of events in their lives," she says.

Ianucelli most certainly has made some changes, whether it be her latest tattoo (she has five), or her new breast implants.

"I wanted better breasts," she says. "I didn't like what had become of them. I didn't feel that they matched how I felt. I felt that they made me less of a sexual person; they made me less attractive as a woman, and that's very important to me."

And she's not alone.

New York plastic surgeon Lawrence Bass says seniors are now asking for much more than just a facelift.

"Liposuction, tummy tucks, even breats lifts and breast augmentation are being increasingly pursued by the senior groups," he says.

Delehanty notes, "Everyone wants to be young, everybody wants to be youthful, I guess, which means full of energy, and attractive to other people."

For some, that means cosmetic surgery and physical activity. To others, it is about sports cars. But for Ortenzi, that's not the real way to stave off old age.

"Don't get old," he says. "You got to stay young up here (points to head) and in here (points to chest)."

Asked if he went through a mid-life crisis in his 40s, Ortenzi said no, he was too busy worring about his job and his family.