Just ask Joe McMahon Jr. He is belatedly realizing a youthful ambition by becoming a published songwriter at age 83. He wrote eight of the 10 love songs on his first compact disk, "Secondhand Heart For Sale," more than 60 years ago. Hundreds of U.S. radio stations already have aired tunes from the CD, a collection of Forties-style torch songs released in January. A big retail push is planned by his CD distributor, Taragon Records Co. of Deer Park, N.Y.  Mr. McMahon, who looks younger than his years, is a former New York advertising man and executive recruiter. He launched his third career even though he’s now legally blind and battling two types of cancer.
   Mr. McMahon’s remarkable experience offers inspiration to us countless "tree huggers," headhunter lingo for infrequent job hoppers. We’re too timid to quit long-time employers, much less risk plunging into more creative pursuits.  In his only solo on the CD, Mr. McMahon seems to express the fears of potential career changers. "It just ain’t sensible for us to try," he croons.
   Mr. McMahon typifies people with late-career triumphs. Among a group of 150 high achievers aged 65 to 101 studied by researcher Lydia Bronte, career switchers often went back and picked up a bypassed interest. "Only when they retired did they feel free to do what they wanted," reports Ms. Bronte, a research fellow at Hunter College’s Brookdale Center on Aging.
   Joe McMahon always wanted to follow the footsteps of his idol, Cole Porter. Growing up in Massachusetts, he learned to play the banjo, mandolin and saxophone. He formed a dance band at age 15. While attending the University of Wisconsin, he composed songs for campus musicals. "Every night he’d go down and work with his songs on the piano at the fraternity house," frat brother Jonathan "Jake" Jackson remembers. "Some of his music reminded me of Cole Porter."
   Mr. McMahon met a Porter cousin during a 1938 summer fishing trip with Mr. Jackson. The cousin arranged for him to show his work to the famous songwriter in New York. Mr. Porter liked Mr. McMahon’s tunes, especially the lyrics. "You keep writing, young man," he said. "But write your own thing."  That same day, Mr. Porter sent the student to his agent at nearby publisher Chappell Music. The agent urged Mr. McMahon to return after he graduated in 1940. He never did. "Paying the rent and buying the groceries made more sense than being a starving songwriter," Mr. McMahon explains. He regrets abandoning his passion. "Have you ever…made some decision that you wished you could change in some way?" he asks wistfully. "That was one of them."
   He wrote a few songs during his subsequent military service. Then, "the muse died," he says. Mr. McMahon eventually became a successful advertising and marketing manager for Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. and three major ad agencies. Search firm Korn/Ferry International recruited him upon his retirement in 1981 at age 65. Four years later, he was one of its five highest billers. He joined a second search firm in 1994 and finally retired from recruiting in 1997. Complications from multiple eye operations destroyed most of his sight. His prostate cancer also spread to his bones that year. "I was not a very happy camper," recalls the usually ebullient Mr. McMahon, a twice-divorced father with four grown daughters. "Life didn’t seem worth living."
   In early 1999, however, the muse returned. He composed his CD’s title track performing before the bathroom mirror in his tiny, cluttered Manhattan apartment. A second tune took shape in the shower. Through a mutual friend, Mr. McMahon won an audition with Jimmy Wisner, a veteran music producer, arranger and composer. "He’s very, very good" at devising songs in the vein of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, Mr. Wisner says. "Maybe he wasn’t ready in his earlier years." Mr. Wisner arranged and produced the CD, which a studio recorded last summer. "I was on cloud nine," Mr. McMahon says. He celebrated with a martini at his neighborhood bar.
   But succeeding late in life in a teen-focused industry is much harder than launching a third career. Few retail chains or radio stations feature Mr. McMahon’s style of music. "If the [CD] had come out in the 60s, it might have had a better chance," observes Jim Stone, host of radio station WLNZ’s Big Band Swing program in Lansing, Mich. "Joe had big numbers in his head" and initially hoped to sell at least 100,000 copies, Mr. Wisner recollects. "I said to Joe….’If we can sell 25,000 to 50,000, that would be sensational.’" Impatient for success, Mr. McMahon jumps at chances to appear on radio shows or autograph free disks for taxi drivers. "I had no idea it would be this hard to do distribution," the ex-marketing man laments.
   Now, he is busy preparing a second album, another blend of old and new melodies. He composed one while hospitalized for a fractured foot last fall. So, should we fainthearted tree huggers attempt to emulate Joe McMahon - even if we feel too insecure to switch gears? He believes a career change requires considerable self-confidence and financial self-sufficiency. But don’t avoid embracing a creative career "just because you’ve reached a certain age," advises Mr. McMahon. "Of all times, it is the time to do it because the element of risk is no longer there."