An AARP Letter Can Wreck Your Day : Aging: For some, joining the over 50 club means great discounts and other cool stuff. But many others don’t like to admit their age, even if they do like taking advantage of their status.

Things were going so well.

Your hair transplants were sprouting. You finally bought that red convertible. You got a date with the buff blond at the fitness club and the scars from your last liposuction were fully healed.

And now, this: “Welcome to AARP!”

Without warning, without therapy, without even the tiniest apology, you are issued a “Certificate of Admission” to the biggest old folks club in the world.

“Dear Friend,” begins Executive Director Horace B. Deets’ oh-so-sincere letter. “This is a time for careful planning. This is a time when every dollar counts. . . .

“This is a time to grow up and act your age!” he might as well add.

Of course, he doesn’t. Instead, there is just an innocent little “P.S. You have to be 50 or over to join AARP.”

As if he didn’t know.

Somehow--and nobody at the American Assn. for Retired Persons will ever tell you exactly how--Deets and company already know the names of every 49-, 49 1/2-, 50- and 50 1/2-year-old person in the United States of America.

For months, they have known that giggly Goldie Hawn, bouncy Bette Midler and Neil (not forever) Young are eligible for membership. And, according to AARP’s published “Big Five Oh” list, Diane Sawyer will be joining them on Dec. 22. “Looks like the ‘PrimeTime’ of her life,” quips an association pundit.

Dan Dominy, for one, is not amused. Fifty, says the Lake Tahoe adventure photographer, isn’t funny.

“When I was about 24, my wife and I actually made a pact to kill ourselves when we turned 50. We thought 50 was like death then.”

Now divorced, Dominy’s ex called him on his 50th birthday in July to absolve him of his pledge. “We both decided it was a very immature decision,” Dominy says. “These days, I see age is irrelevant. Why count? The question is ‘Are you physically ready?’ ”

In Dominy’s case, that means ready to hike the Himalayas, snowshoe around the North Pole or bicycle across Utah.

Between treks, he has received several messages from the AARP. He has yet to respond. “I’m not a joiner so I probably won’t sign up, but I haven’t thrown anything away either.”

That’s OK. The AARP is nothing if not patient--and persistent. Every year, the nation’s largest nonprofit group sends out an astounding 50 million pieces of mail to potential members. About 2 million people join each year.

Because they cram those mailings with facts about all the wonderful things AARP can do for fiftysomethings, and because it costs only $8 per year to belong, AARP has more than 30 million members--about half of eligible Americans. And fully half of them are younger than 65.

In fact, one of its most popular new publications is “Aging Baby Boomers: How Secure Is Their Economic Future?” (Very by the year 2030, according to AARP’s projections.)

But as the first of the nation’s 76 million baby boomers (anyone born from 1946 to 1964) hits the half-century mark on Jan. 1, AARP membership is expected to surge. Assuming future members survive that first letter.

“There is no question that people--especially this group of people--tend to think of themselves as younger than they actually are,” says AARP spokesman Ted Bobrow, who concedes he is only 37.

“Of course, some of the boomers get a kind of negative feeling when they are reminded they are entering their 50s. But here at AARP, we are changing the image of aging. It’s no longer synonymous with frailty, or even retirement.”

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If that’s the case, snarls Jim Warren, a 51-year-old Washington publisher, then why isn’t AARP more au courant, more hip, more, well, age-appropriate?

“First thing they should do is change the name of that magazine: Modern Maturity. You might as well say, ‘You’re gonna be dead soon, sucker. Send us your money.’

“Oh, sure, sure, I joined at first, because I thought . . . oh, I don’t know what I thought, maybe they might have something I really need,” Warren recalls. “But I started getting all these so-called helpful publications on nursing homes and mature driving programs and grandparenting and retirement and I couldn’t take it anymore.

“It seemed like AARP was just out to build a business around old people and to do that, they try to make you feel old,” he says. “And I am not all that old.”

That may be a common refrain among men and women--yes, mostly women--of a certain age when they are approached with age-related questions.

“What do you think of AARP?” asks the reporter.

“How should I know? I am a very, very young woman. Please do not call me again.” (This from a Brentwood woman who has been a member for at least five years.)

Long Island artist Rachel Kaplan is 52 but has yet to receive her first piece of mail from AARP. “That’s because they know I am not old enough yet. Probably when I am 55, maybe 60.”

Then there is the famous reaction of feminist and trendsetter Gloria Steinem to turning 50 eleven--that is correct, 11--years ago. When someone marveled, “But you don’t look 50,” Steinem replied cheerfully, “This is what 50 looks like.”

Los Angeles comedy writer Bob Mills admires such style. “Why lie about your age? It can get you all sorts of great stuff! Hey, how about those senior discounts! Love ‘em, just love ‘em.”

Indeed, Mills says he has been enjoying such discounts for more than a decade.

“Now that used to bother me. I’d be sneaking into the movies as a senior when I was 10 years too young and nobody noticed. What a shocker!”

Mills, who wrote jokes for Bob Hope for 17 years, freely admits to being 58.

“But what does it matter what number it is? It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter a bit except if you’re 50, you can join AARP. And I love AARP! The best thing about them is you don’t have to do anything for them. You just have to be old.”