Ouch! I freely concede that I may be slightly over-sensitive--but picking an arbitrary age as the point at which we "'oldies" have passed into our 'dotage' . . kind of bothers me.

Actually, that's a conservative statement. It's offensive and annoying. You've probably guessed it, but I'm somewhat beyond your dotage definition of 75. I'm 79.

It's essentially the same problem I have with other one-size-fits-all definitions for what constitutes old age, or as you put it, dotage. When you've seen one 75 year old, you've seen one 75 year old.

Forgive my rant, I had to say it. Otherwise, I think you make some interesting points.