Certainly, they are of an age where they might be expected to retire into obscurity. Just as certainly, they could survive more than comfortably in such an existence. Yet each chooses to continue working. Sylvia is currently working on a book about women in dysfunctional relationships, and she and Ralph together manage a variety of entertainment ventures including national beauty pageants.

"We are not comfortable with the idea of retiring," Sylvia states simply. "We have friends who've retired, and they seem to do nothing."

Some people eschew conventional retirement because they just don't want to give up the activity of workaday life. Others simply cannot afford to retire. Among both groups, however, an increasingly popular alternative to retirement is starting a small business, often one run from home-just the type of business that dominates the directory section of Business Opportunities Handbook.

The conventional notion of retirement life is changing rapidly.

While popular perception of retirement among U.S. workers has long been a sort of pleasant swan song for the American Dream, the reality of retirement in the future--even the present--is quite different. With the average retirement age heading upward and the resources available from government programs such as Social Security moving in the opposite direction, more and more Americans are likely to continue working well into their 60s and 70s.

In his book, "The Retirement Myth," journalist Craig Karpel paints a grim picture of millions of baby boomer "dumpies" (destitute unprepared mature people) eking out a hand-to-mouth existence rather than swatting golf balls in the Florida sun. However, he also acknowledges that this scenario in not preordained to occur.

Like many experts in this field, Karpel envisions work beyond traditional retirement ages as the key. "For us, quitting paid work in one's sixties and turning to a life of pure play, now a virtually universal middle class expectation, will become what it previously was in America and still is in most of the world: a dream for many, a goal for some, attained by few," he writes.

Actually, says Dallas Salisbury, president of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, if that type of retirement has been a "universal middle class expectation," it has been a very unrealistic one.

"The vast majority of defined benefit retirement plans (the type generally offering the most generous pay-outs) have always been offered only at about the 7,000 largest companies in America, and there has been very little shift in that regard," he says. "The (pure play) retirement scenario has never had real relevance except to the top 20 of earners."

Despite the flawed vision of the quality of retirement commonly held, expectations of a lower retirement age have been met consistency," with the median retirement age dropping by four years since the end of World War II.

"The latest data show that the decline in median retirement age is clearly over," says Richard Burkhauser, an economist at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, the nation's leading public graduate school. "From 1985 to 1993, the number of men actively participating in the labor force increased by more than a full percentage point, and the number of 65-year-olds working has held steady at 30.5, halting a four-decade decline."

Starting and running a small business is an attractive option for many.

Burkhauser serves on a technical committee of the 1995 Advisory Council, a group of public-and private-sector experts convened to give advice to the Social Security Administration. With the retirement age at which workers can collect full Social Security benefits already scheduled to go up to 67, the Advisory Council is poised to recommend it be raised even higher, he says.

"The clear signal from the federal government is that people are going to be expected to work longer, and that signal will make it more expensive for private firms to fund the kind of early retirement programs that have helped fuel the drop in retirement age," Burkhauser says.

Since the average baby-boomer household is saving only about a third of what it will need to live comfortably in retirement, continued work beyond traditional retirement age by many Americans seems guaranteed. The Turco's son, Michael, in fact, is preparing for just that eventuality.

Michael Turco is not counting on much help from government programs in his remitment scenario. "I thing I'll have to rely mainly on myself," says the 35-year-old Rancho Palos Berdes, Calif., computer specialist. "Planning it out that way is certainly the safest route. Society has changed so much over the past 30 years. I have no idea what the world will be like in another 30."

With a wife and two young children, Michael has already experienced firsthand the vagaries of corporate life in the 1990s. Despite playing a key role in Mattel Toys Inc.'s computerization efforts form 1988 to 1994, he found himself downsized out of a job when the company merged with Fisher-Price Inc. Although he is thriving as a self-employed consultant, the experience was an important wake-up call.

Like many of his contemporaries, Michael Turco expects to continue working well beyond traditional retirement age. Accommodating the prospect of some 76 million graying baby boomers with similar expectations of continued, meaningful employment may require some radical changes in society. some feel the key will be providing access to relevant training.

The organization has also broadened its definition of retirement to include "phased retirement, retirement from on job to another and new careers." Its financial planning guide for soon-to-be retirees bluntly acknowledges that, "Many people plan to work in retirement, and this may be an idea you want to adopt."

The average person will be involved in several different careers over time.

Since the rising eligibility age for Social Security will make it increasingly expensive for companies to push out older workers, some can expect to continue doing the same jobs they do today.

Even if they stay in the same line of work, however, many employees will begin looking for alternatives to full-time employment, especially as they get into their mid-60s and beyond, says Roger Herman, a futurist, consultant and author of "Turbulence: Challenges and Opportunities in the World of Work."

For older workers interested in pursuing new challenges, Herman says there will be no shortage of opportunities.

Clearly, there are many opportunities beyond retirement for people today. One of the most rewarding--and challenging--can be starting and running your own business.