SEATTLE — The problem some baby boomers have with impending retirement is the problem the unchurched have with the afterlife: Hell looks like more fun.

Who wants to sit on a cloud in a robe playing a harp for eternity, when the bad people below get to run around naked and play mischief?

Similarly, how many games of golf can you play or fishing holes can you plumb before repetition begins to make it seem like ... work? Especially when the geezers who stay on the job have more money, dine out, go on cool vacations and kick more butt?

Retire? Can't afford to. Don't want to. Don't need to. And the 76 million baby boomers, the first of whom hit 60 this year, expect medical science to keep them wheezing forever.

Which means, sorry, Generations X, Y and Z: The only way to get room at the top is poison. Call it the silver ceiling. If Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones can rock into their 60s, boomers plan to hang on longer than the vampire Lestat. Human Resources, get ready for the living dead.

At least that's what boomers are telling pollsters like the American Association of Retired Persons, which reports that up to 80 percent of those answering their surveys plan to continue working — for money or for charity — past normal retirement age.

That may be boomer baloney. Fewer than one in five over 65 work for pay now, and they represent just 3 percent of the work force. Many employers are still slow to recognize them as prime timber, not dead wood.

Poor health, other opportunities or plain old weariness may force a good chunk of that 80 percent to bail. Historically, about 40 percent of U.S. workers have stepped out of their jobs sooner than they expected, mostly because of health problems or layoffs.

But boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) make up 40 percent of the U.S. work force, and when financial planners tell them they need to sock away seven to 15 times their annual salary to comfortably quit, even the midnight shift at 7-Eleven starts to look like a necessity.

Living longer

Between 1900 and 2000, the average life expectancy in this country for men rose from 48 to 74, and for women from 51 to 80. Life expectancy is 50 percent higher just since the 1930s, when Social Security was created.

By the middle of this century, the average life span is expected to hit 81 for men, 87 for women. Right now, planners say those retiring at 65 need financial resources to live another 18 years, on average. That's a long time without a paycheck: at an annual inflation rate of 4 percent, the cost of living doubles in 19 years.

So Mesa Trumble, 74, gets up at 4:30 a.m. to beat the traffic from her daughter's house in Federal Way to the insurance firm Acordia Northwest in downtown Seattle, where she works in customer service. Widowed since 1967, her decision to keep working in her 70s is a combination of necessity and choice.

"I could scrimp by, but I like to help out with my daughter and two granddaughters," she says. "We eat out. We make trips to California. I don't get tired each day until I stop working, and I intend to continue working until I can't."

Elaine Avery, 79, works 40 hours a week on the 11 p.m.-to-7 a.m. shift at the Marina Inn in Anacortes, preferring quiet graveyard hours that free her to play cards with retired friends in the afternoon. "I have to," she says, "because I don't just want to exist."

Her late husband's nervous breakdown forced an early exit from Boeing and a loss of pension, and her early birth date costs her $3,000 in Social Security she would have received if born 25 days later. Her monthly stipend is just $1,104. Her grandmother lived to 103 and her mother to 100. "I have lots of years left, and I'd like to work as long as I possibly can." She had just come off 12 straight days on the job without a break.

While only about a quarter of senior workers choose to work a full 40 hours a week, plenty prefer to have some cash coming in. Senior workers average a third of the earnings they made at their peak.

Certainly we're beginning a demographic earthquake. The 63 million Americans age 55 and older now will grow to 100 million in just seven years. In 1986 just 2.9 million workers were over 65; now it's 5.1 million and climbing. And U.S. business is facing a labor shortage: The number of 25-to-39-year-old workers is actually expected to fall 6 percent by the end of this decade.

Boomers: Can't stand to hear about them, can't sustain the economy without them.

American workers are more likely to keep at it past normal retirement age than workers in any other industrial country.

Not long ago, this wasn't the dream. Some boomers talked blithely of taking their pumped-up 401(k)s and cashing out by 55. As recently as 1998, the average intended age of retirement was 62; now it's 65, pollsters say. Why? Along came the dot-com implosion, war, inflation, soaring health costs, disappearing pensions, and suddenly the math looked dubious. Go to school the first 25 years. Work 30. Retire for 30 or 35 more? Get real.

Back on the job

Alana McIalwain, director of the city of Seattle's Age 55-Plus Employment Resource Center — which has a list of 560 seniors looking for work — intended to retire at 55. A crashing stock market made that less realistic, and now, at 60, "I don't necessarily want to retire anymore." She loves her job. She thinks it's better for her health than doing nothing.

And sit around with little money? No thanks.

In the first half of this year, her agency has made 287 senior job placements. At a recent employment workshop, about 30 seniors got some coaching.

Vincent Frazier, 78, is looking for work and studying for a bachelor of science degree because of the cost of living. "Retirement money is not going as far as it did," says the Honduran native who lives in Bellevue, Wash., now. "I have to hunt for the cheapest gas."

Rebecca Wells of Seattle had lost her bookkeeping job at the Internal Revenue Service despite computer retraining, and can't survive on Social Security of $951 a month. Sixty-three now, she says, "As long as I'm breathing and have strength, I'll be working."

Patricia Robinson-LaPoint has been a nurse and, after the death of her husband eight years ago, is enrolled at age 65 in an MBA program to find work to keep paying her mortgage in Seattle. "I don't have enough income."In a Putnam Investments survey, half of working retirees were still paying off a mortgage.Robert Perecinsky, also 65, worked his way up to officer in the Merchant Marines over a career of nearly 40 years. Despite a good pension, he misses the money for travel and the social network that work provides. With just a year of college — but having skippered ships 1,000 feet long — he's trying to figure out if his skills are transferable.He's not alone. Many initial retirees go back to work within 18 months, either out of boredom or desperation, often taking "bridge" jobs at new employers for fewer hours and lower pay.Boomers simply aren't interested in spending their golden years in a singlewide in outer Mossy Rock counting the hours until Bingo Night. They want to check out the latest haute cuisine, do their heavy lifting at the Nordstrom sale rack, and visit a European country that isn't already stamped on their passport.Eleanor O'Keefe, 63, can afford to retire. Her husband has already done so. But the insurance executive likes the higher standard of living that her work at Acordia allows."It doesn't seem like the right time," she says.The magical retirement age of 65 was originally picked by German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck in the 19th century after calculating that few of his millions of army veterans would ever reach it. Now the math has changed, and Congress has made mandatory retirement illegal, started pushing back the age for full Social Security benefits, and passed tax and pension incentives to get would-be retirees to delay their exit.Procter & Gamble has created YourEncore to hire back its retired researchers for short-term projects. Florida's WillowCSN telemarketing firm uses seniors for 15 percent of its call staff. Iowa's Stanley Consultants, which is No. 1 on the AARP list of 50 best companies for older workers, keeps three out of four of its "retirees" on staff, at reduced hours, for a period that can range from months to years, depending on the staffer's preference. During the last year, more than a quarter of the company's new hires were 50 or older.This isn't charity or pity. Surveyed companies report that older workers are above average in experience, judgment, commitment to quality, attendance and punctuality. They're usually past cut-throat office politics, torrid affairs, party-on hangovers, midlife crises and hormonal angst. Where they rank below average is in adaptability to new technology.In 2004, Art Durgin, 78, got a national performance award from the business newspaper chain that employs him. At the Puget Sound Business Journal, where he calls 100 to 200 people a week to renew subscriptions, he's one of the top sales people and has twice won its employee of the year award.Durgin went to work for the Journal at age 61, after his career selling printers evaporated with the invention of computer-based desktop publishing. Now he lives on Bainbridge Island, walks a mile to the ferry, and became a great-grandfather this past spring."I'm under no pressure to retire," he says. "I like my job, and subscribers wait for me to call them back." Again, it's a combination of desire and need: The money gives him a better life with his handicapped wife.There is evidence that for many seniors, work is a choice. Older workers are more than twice as likely as non-working retirees to have a college degree, for example, suggesting that many stay on because they have sit-down jobs that are interesting, not drudge labor they are desperate to escape.In Seattle, according to poll data, about one-quarter of workers retire between 55 and 64, and the rest after that. Those working past 65 are more likely than their non-working peers to be married, to have had higher incomes, to be athletic, to have stocks and bonds, and to have a second home."We did retire, three times," says Mary Russell of Spokane, the first time more than a decade ago.But after she and husband Bob, 73, raised 12 children they had little in the way of a nest egg despite his good mining-engineer job. Besides, companies kept hiring him back as a consultant. They went to Zambia for several years. Most recently they took over a moribund mining stock and are riding the resurgence of American mining. Their goal is to usher a molybdenum mine in Nevada through the permit process, sell, then retire once again. Maybe."We never learned to play golf because we're too busy!" jokes Mary, who's 70.Need to workFor others, work is a stark necessity. Half of all workers have done no retirement planning. Half have no pension or 401(k). Of those workers older than 55, 52 percent have less than $50,000 in retirement savings. Experts recommend that a couple with an annual income of $50,000 should have a minimum of $350,000 (in pension, 401k or savings), plus Social Security, to draw from if retiring at 65, to sustain a similar level of living.A quarter of American workers have no retirement savings at all.Vicki Grady, 71, of Anacortes, had a limited job history before she divorced, and admits she didn't manage the small divorce settlement well. Her Social Security, now at $849 a month with temporary state and Group Health supplements, is due to fall soon to just more than $600. She survives by making scenic photographic postcards, self-employment that made her top seller at the Skagit Tulip Festival Pickle Barn art show but which — though she's sold more than 40,000 cards over a decade — remains subsistence living. She relies on subsidized housing and can't afford to quit, despite a recent mild stroke. More recently she started packing spices for a friend's small business, six to 12 hours a week.Nor can boomers rely on inheritance. Nationally, only 26 percent of retirees today say inheritance is a part of their income, and only 15 percent of baby boomers say they expect to inherit anything substantial. To date, their median inheritance amount has been a modest $49,000.So a revolution is starting as powerful as the youth revolution of the 1960s. The world is getting grayer. Fewer workers are in physically punishing jobs; more are in sedentary but creative occupations they want to continue. There are not enough young workers to support traditional retirement, and 76 million boomers want to keep active and have disposable income.The challenge is to harness their experience while retraining them for a world of whirlwind change.With Army reservists in Iraq in their 50s (the maximum enlistment age was just raised two years), rock stars in their 60s and movie stars in their 70s, there are plenty of role models. So hold off on the gold watch. Your retiree may be back within 18 months, looking for work.