Amelia Reynolds, 57, surprises herself when she admits to spending three days a week at Irvine, Calif.'s Lakeview Senior Center - a place not many boomers her age would think of spending an afternoon.

A "senior center," after all, means bingo and billiards, old people with just enough energy to blow tunes in a kazoo band, maybe a "twinges in the hinges" class for arthritis relief. Right?

Not in the happening cities of Orange County, Calif., where senior centers are open at night for everything from kick boxing and jazzercise to computer classes.

These centers, once designed to give older Americans a hot meal and socialization, are transforming into wellness havens for the county's fast-growing 60-plus population.

By 2020, Orange County is expected to have 719,000 residents age 60 or older, compared with 437,972 today. More telling, the minority populations of Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino and other ethnic residents will make up about half the total, a significant increase.

And the younger seniors are not likely to be turned on by bridge classes and chair aerobics.

"Many boomers are young at heart and don't necessarily feel they need programs for seniors," says Karen Roper, director of the county's Office on Aging. "They don't consider themselves `seniors.' They want programs that are more progressive."

Which explains the wine-tasting trips, Sunday afternoon tea dances and evening yoga programs already offered at many centers.

The problem, say center directors, is getting the word out to the younger set.
"I didn't know what they had at a senior center, not at all," Reynolds said. "I felt it would be a good cause if I volunteered to work meals and in the dining room. That's why I first came."

Then, at the Irvine center, she found the Chinese Evergreen Association and their mah jong games. Reynolds, who speaks Cantonese, says the group is mostly Mandarin-speaking. "From playing with them, I'm learning Mandarin - with a Cantonese accent."

Next she started line dancing and aerobics "and that really helps me keep my cholesterol down."

Now the senior center is as much a part of her life as it is to Janice DeLancey, 69.

DeLancey has her own fitness program that takes her to an outside gym and other sites for training for special events, such as the L.A. marathon. But she also volunteers regularly in the center's computer room.

"People who stay in exercises classes or use computers want to stay connected and current," she says. "They want to be involved. That's what makes them different."

Not all seniors are happy with the emphasis on things current and active. "Probably 90 percent of the individuals see huge benefits in the way we operate an integrated program," says center director Mya Sanders. "But there will always be those who are prejudiced."

Newer cities have an advantage over the older communities in this regard, says Cathy Angstadt, director of Laguna Niguel Sea Country Senior and Community Center. General adult classes in the evening draw a large crowd to the center, which offers programming for a 40- to 50-year lifespan, she says.
One advantage younger seniors have: They can drive at night. Centers are open to all, not just residents of the particular city, Angstadt points out, so younger seniors can "shop around" for exercise programs they enjoy.

But older cities also have opportunities to regroup and rethink their senior programming.

Members of the Huntington Beach (Calif.) Council on Aging and Senior Center Committee are lobbying city officials to build a new $23 million center - one that will reflect the high-energy, high-tech interests of the new senior.

"We've been going to other centers in California to look at what the trend might be," says Chris Cole, the Huntington Beach center's recreation coordinator. 

"We're already bursting at the seams and physical fitness classes are more and more popular."

Other long-settled cities already are meeting the needs of a younger "older" population.

Cerritos, Calif., just opened a 5,000-square-foot wing with cardiovascular and weight-training equipment, locker rooms and a conference room for health screenings.

Mission Viejo's center will expand to add wireless Internet connections and an auditorium for performances, says director Nancy Hermann.

"In the future, these centers really must approach serving the whole person, they must become wellness communities," says Marilyn Ditty, director of Senior Meals and Services in Laguna Hills, Calif.

And that includes changing the noontime meal to a more nutritious "wellness" meal, she says.

The new senior wants to exercise and eat right, Ditty says, "so the comfort foods we've been doing for the past decade are getting passe."

That's good enough for Barbara Goldberg, 75, who teaches a Weight Watchers class at the Laguna Hills center.

"I'm proud to be a senior," she says. "After all, 70 is the new 50 and 80 is the new 60. We have 90-year-olds dancing and doing all kinds of things."

Pat Trotter, retired director of the Fullerton center and now a member of the county's Senior Citizens Advisory Council, insists the "focal point senior center is important to new retirees. We have to make them successful, but we don't know what success looks like for them.

"I think it's successful if they come for whatever they need. We don't have to engage everybody in everything."

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