The Baby Boomer Generation is a source for trends, research, comment and discussion of and by people born from 1946 - 1964.
Covering issues on the Boomer Generation including original content for Boomers, bulletin boards, user comments, Sixties and Seventies music, Baby Boomer culture, health and coverage of issues for "Aging Hipsters."
January 2008 January 30, 2008
Yet Another Phoenix Rising
As the writer points out, in this interview with Don Brewster of Grand Funk Railroad, oldies aren't old anymore---now they're 'classic rock.' Like our generation--we're not old, we're classic. So GFR is back on the concert trail. Catch them at a venue near you.
Money In, Money Out--Boomers Paying Out in Both Directions
According to a recent Ameriprise survey, almost all boomers surveyed are giving their adult children financial assistance, while a fair amount are also assisting aging parents financially. This can substantially affect our ability to save and invest for retirement. Download the study results.
There's something I often say to my kids when one or the other is whining about lost chances--"It's not too late until you're dead." Yet as I reach another birthday, I realize that I have mentally moved a great deal of life into the 'too late' category. It's not as if I consider an activity or an accomplishment and then reach the reasonable conclusion that I don't have the brains, strength, looks, appetite, (insert attribute here) for it. I just assume it's too late.
So, with the aforementioned birthday looming I decided to make a list of things it really is too late for me to do, assuming I even wanted to do them. I expected a really long list since I do sometimes walk around in a fog of wouldacouldashoulda.
Once I ruled out things I have absoultely no interest in pursuing, the list got really really short. Of course, I probably will not learn to be a jet pilot. But I don't want to be a jet pilot. I'm too old to be a major league baseball player--but I've always been the wrong gender for that.
I'm not too old to learn new things--maybe I'll learn slower, but since when was youth a prerequisite for learning a language, learning to bake puff pastry, playing boogie-woogie piano, or snowboarding? OK--the snowboarding thing may be a little out of reach. But it's not too late to live somewhere else, develop a taste for olives, dye my hair odd colors, or write a book.
In fact, with the exception of things is was too late to do from the moment I was born who I am, what is really out of reach? We may be limited by our interests or talents--I will probably not star in a Broadway musical--but that doesn't stop me from knowing all the songs and singing along.
When I was young and money was tight, I used to joke that I could always go to work as a stripper if worse came to worst (no--I couldn't really, honest). And you know what? That may be the single thing it's really too late for me to do. Oh yeah..and the baseball thing. And being president. That's about it. What's on your 'too late' list?
We're a little late with this story, but 'AARP the Magazine' (as it calls itself) came out with a study this year of 5 great cities for retirement and other cities to watch. I've often thought a city would make more sense than an isolated gated adult community where no one delivers Chinese food and your only transportation option is a twice-daily senior shuttle. It's an interesting list. Milwaukee??? Who'da thunk it?
We know how you love to argue about who's a boomer, who isn't a boomer, am I a boomer, I am not a boomer, yadda, yadda, yadda. This article should fuel some flames.
I wear glasses with transition lenses these days--three sections--distance, mid-distance, and close-up. The distance part works as well as can be expected, the middle-distance part works depending on what you consider 'middle,' but the close-up is marginally better than blindness. How often do you see boomers hitching their glasses up to their foreheads to read a map, a label, the newspaper?
Apparently there's a new procedure available called "CK" - conductive keratoplasty--which may be able to correct changes to our aging eyes. While it is supposed to correct far-sightedness, it may not be you for if you're also nearsighted. It sure would be nice though, not to have to carry a miner's light and a magnifying glass every time you want to read the menu.