Wisdom Of Ages Put another candle on the birthday cake.

Boomers, shmoomers. So much attention is paid to the baby boomgeneration (yes, we plead guilty) that it's all too easy tooverlook what is actually the fastest-growing population segment inthe country: centenarians.

OK, so Americans 100 years old and older are still relativelyfew in number. Nonetheless, by 2005, it's projected that thisunique population will venture past the 100,000 mark. Even morestaggering, that number is projected to grow to 800,000-plus by2050.

So who exactly are these most senior of citizens?"Centenarians are a diverse group of individuals," saysLynn Peters Adler, founder of the National Centenarian AwarenessProject, a Phoenix-based nonprofit organization devoted topromoting centenarians. "They come from all walks oflife."