Each Sunday my husband and I watch the Amazing Race: a reality show with pairs of people who “race” in various places around the world completing tasks. The last team most weeks is eliminated from the competition. At the end, the winner from the final three teams wins one million dollars. Nice.

Sure, I’d eat weird food, repel off the side of a tall building, and work hard to bridge cultural challenges as part of the Race. But when we watch, sometimes we comment: “Oh, we could have done that 30 years ago, but now…umm. Hmmm.”

Wisdom from our armchair observations: always read the clue to the end and follow it, don’t try to second guess the outcome. Some contestants had to repeat or lost a leg of the race because they took a cab, when instructed to walk. The tasks using brute strength (gross motor skills) seem easier than ones appearing easy: arrange 12 kinds of fruit on a plate, in order, various amounts, serve the customers. No, thanks, too much room for error. I’ll build the crab pot. And sometimes, really nice people win.

But why not an Amazing Race for aging Boomers who are skilled with more brains and experience than brute strength? No cab drivers, instead find your way in a foreign city by yourselves, communicate with strangers and decode the clues to the next location. Offer tasks requiring deductive reasoning – not marathon-running lungs.

While waiting for a more age-appropriate version of the Race, we will continue to view the competitive tasks in faraway places. Grateful we have made it to our station in life – through amazing grace.

(S-R archive photo: Executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who won an Emmy for outstanding reality-competition program for his work on "The Amazing Race," May 2005.)

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