Howard Englander has no interest in the early bird special at the pancake house. After a life-long career in advertising and marketing, he remains active writing about the realities of aging, making it a point to debunk the Hollywood and television stereotypes of "the grumpy old man" and "the ditzy grandma." His collection of short stories, entitled 73, probes the true feelings, inevitable problems and unexpected opportunities that lie ahead for AmericaÕs growing senior population. As the stories vividly express, when old age hits, you can either fall down or hit back.

Living in a celebrity-worshipping culture that regards people in their seventies as if they were old cars ready for the junk heap, Englander writes about men and women who refuse to look at the odometer. What stands out is the cumulative impact of his collection taken as a whole. The readers will know and feel what it's like to grow old, struggling to resist becoming irrelevant in a youth-oriented society. Booklovers will laugh, cry, and run the gamut of emotions, identifying with the sometime zany, sometime heroic characters.

Writing fiction is a welcomed change for Englander after working at many major agencies throughout his career, creating award-winning commercials for companies including Frito-Lay, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, Revlon and Texas Instruments, among others. Englander graduated as an honors society member from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He later taught there, as well as at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, and Columbia College in Chicago.

Englander currently is working on a follow-up to 73, entitled Bottom of the Ninth.