And then became invisible.

Went to a dear friend’s 70th birthday party recently. I plan on joining him in that bracket next March.

But I had to wonder as I headed home from the party at an hour when I used to start getting ready for the party: Are people our age becoming invisible? Are we fading into the bushes?

For the most part, advertisers seem to pass us by, unless they’re selling life insurance, reverse mortgages, Depends, smelly joint-pain ointments or something for our prostates.

The record companies occasionally dust off some old Tony Bennett croons that apparently weren’t good enough to release the first time around, hoping for one more shot at separating us old-timers from our money.

For the record, I hate crooner music. Tony Bennett and the Rat Pack would have all been looking for other work if they depended on my entertainment dollar. My tastes. Please don’t send hate mail.

And a note to Rod Stewart: That crooning drivel you produced sounded especially silly coming from a guy with your hair.

Ladies don’t give us the eye much anymore, unless it’s to see if we dribbled on ourselves before coming out of the bathroom or to figure out what that spot is on our shirt from dinner.

That “come-on” look that used to be in their eyes has been replaced by something closer to, “Get away from me, old man. And trim your ear hair while you’re at it.”

Even looking at a pretty woman can get you in trouble now. Apparently, at our age, we’re supposed to admire architecture and sunsets.

Grandkids seem to humor us because their parents told them to. They’ll come up and give us hugs, sometimes even smooches, while simultaneously pulling away as though we’ve developed an odor nobody has had the courage to tell us about.

I waited my entire life to use the “pull my finger” routine on my grandchildren, only to discover they already knew the joke.

Seems like the only people genuinely glad to see us anymore are our physicians.

But dammit, we’re not dead yet, and we have no plans on becoming so anytime soon.

My friend races cars. Actually, he races just about anything. But the truth is, at 70 years old, you can hardly call him old. I sometimes wonder if all that speed actually makes him younger.

He’s still active in business, plays golf and travels with his wife. Hardly the traits of someone who ought to be put out to pasture.

Me? I’m still writing and publishing books, traveling with the wife – mine, not Adrian’s – writing a weekly newsletter, a publication I would love for you to subscribe to, and surviving rounds of horrible golf.

In fact, I played 27 holes before going to that birthday party, I’ll have you know.

I still play classic rock and roll too loud and go to five or six concerts a year. The fact is that I play my music too loud because I’m hard of hearing — although it could be said I’m hard of hearing because I played my music too loud.

Yet, using my friend and me as a couple of poster boys, Madison Avenue hardly seems to know what to do with us. My guess is that when some 28-year-old advertising executive gets assigned the 65-and-over demographic, there are groans around the conference table before somebody suggests another commercial involving a gray-haired couple holding hands in matching bathtubs.

There are still about 64 million Baby Boomers wandering around America, representing nearly one out of every five people in the country.

And here’s something Madison Avenue might want to consider:

We have some money. And we’re still spending it.

We travel, buy cars and eat in restaurants. We play golf and go to concerts. We buy computers, televisions and phones we don’t completely understand. We fix up our houses. Some of us are still working or starting businesses. And we buy books — although, judging from my royalty statements, apparently not enough of them.

We’re not sitting in rocking chairs waiting for someone to deliver our Metamucil.

Maybe Madison Avenue will eventually notice us. If not, I suppose we’ll somehow struggle along without them. We’ll keep traveling, working, golfing, racing cars, going to concerts, writing books and turning the music up until somebody tells us to knock it off.

Yo, Adrian. We did it.

And we ain’t done yet.