The Baby Boomer Generation: trends, research, comment and discussion of the generation from 1946 - 1964. Includes bulletin boards, Sixties and Seventies music, culture, health and coverage of issues for Baby Boomers
   

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The Baby Boomer Generation: trends, research, comment and discussion of the generation from 1946 - 1964. Includes bulletin boards, Sixties and Seventies music, culture, health and coverage of issues for Boomers

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."
June 14, 2009

Pet Rock

I took this video while visiting friends in WV. Try teaching this pet rock to roll over.



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Rockin' Boomer Radio - Thursday, March 15, 2007
Awhile back, we received a press release about a nifty new site just made for aging hipsters, Classic Rock Central. Currently in beta, the site offers streaming radio, photos, interviews, and news. Granted, some of the news will be of...
Rolling Rock, Wherefore Art Thou, Rolling Rock? - Wednesday, March 12, 2003
© 2003 Dan Sherman Whenever a man has an important task to do, something his wife or girlfriend knows instinctively is CRUCIAL to the fate of the known universe, like scouring the shower walls, it always seems that there is...
Oyaji Rock - Friday, July 8, 2005
Looks like Japan appreciates its Boomers, especially when it comes to rock and roll. In fact, contests for Oyaji (old man) bands are bringing out hundreds of musicians and enthusiastic audiences. So, if your old man band isn't getting any...

Google search: pet rock

June 5, 2009

Party Like It's 1959?

"No one in America can know what will happen. No one is in real control. America is having a nervous breakdown ... Therefore there has been great exaltation, despair, prophecy, strain, suicide, secrecy, and public gaiety among the poets of the city."

How contemporary, how relevant. Except it was written by Allen Ginsberg in the Village Voice 50 years ago. The Ginsberg quote is cited in New York Magazine's feature, "1959: Sex, Jazz and Datsuns."

Being only 8 at the time, I wasn't purchasing Miles Davis' Kind of Blue or worried about Fidel or reading Lady Chatterly's Lover. But the story is an interesting look at a year in the life of our Boomer experience.



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Farewell to Allen Ginsberg - Sunday, February 2, 2003
His life spanned decades of change, whose writing was an integral part of that change, and who, by the way he lived and the messege he sent, kept us from complacency in both art and life. Complete text of...
The Summer of Love East Coast Style: Boomer Memories - Saturday, June 30, 2007
My mother once said, after hearing I had waited on line two days for Rolling Stones tickets, "Someday this will embarrass you." What she meant, I suppose, was that someday almost everything we thought, felt, or did back then would...
Letters, We Get Letters - Thursday, July 20, 2006
Another request from a journalist--this one for Money Magazine. Pretty specific requirements, so if you fit and want your 3 seconds in the limelight, please contact the writer directly. I'm looking to chat with a baby boomer couple and their...

Google search: 1950's, Allen Ginsberg, New York Magazine

April 3, 2009

Serve America Act: Time for Boomers to Step Up

The House has passed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act which, besides providing more volunteer opportunities for middle school and high school students, recognizes baby boomers' enormous potential for civic engagement. The bill expands existing services such as AmeriCorps , which will now have money reserved for enrolling adults over 55. It also creates new service corps focused on education, health care, energy and veterans.

Older adults (meaning us) will be encouraged to take both volunteer and paid non-profit positions. The New York Times quotes John Gomperts, president of the nonprofit research group Civic Ventures, "It represents an attitudinal shift in Congress -- an important recognition that national service isn't just for the young." Well, we know that!

The bill includes the following:

Expands Service Opportunities for Older Americans and Public-Private Partnerships

* Creates two new fellowships to engage social entrepreneurs, boomers and retirees, the private sector and Americans from all generations into service. Older Americans will be allowed to transfer their awards to a child, foster child or grandchild to help them pay for college.

1. ServeAmerica Fellowships: ServeAmerica Fellows are individuals who propose their own plans for serving in their communities to address national needs and are matched up with a service sponsor.

2. Silver Scholarships and Encore Fellowships: These programs offer Americans, age 55 or older, post-career service opportunities as well as entrance into new careers in the public or nonprofit sector. Silver Scholars will be able to earn up to $1,000 in exchange for 350 hours of service.

There are many more provisions to encourage boomers to become involved; you can read a more detailed summary of the bill on GovTrak.us



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Boomers and Hospital Volunteerism - Tuesday, February 6, 2007
An NYU graduate Capstone team is working with the United Hospital Fund on a project to engage Boomers in hospital volunteerism. "The boomer generation is better educated and healthier than previous generations, and is also more culturally, economically, and socially...
Baby Boomers and Volunteerism - Sunday, June 20, 2004
According to a study from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Met Life Foundation, Boomers can find fulfillment in volunteering. Finally someone is looking at us as a resource instead of a rotting anchor dragging society down. If...
All Baby Boomers, All the Time - Friday, April 2, 2004
Well, aren't we lucky, at least those Boomers who live in the Albany, New York area. According to The Business Review, you are about to get Boom, a new 'feature-oriented monthly newspaper' aimed at baby boomers. According to the article,...

Google search: serve america act, volunteerism, americorps

March 29, 2009

What Happens to Boomer Folk Singers?

Yes, Tom Rush is still alive and performing. Damn, we're old.

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Baby Boomer Hits - Thursday, August 21, 2008
I found this on Shabby Pink Scrapper a site that doesn't have much to do with boomers. I know, I know, they're a little corny, but funny nonetheless. If you can think of more, send 'em along. Baby Boomer Song...
Baby Boomer Music Sells (out?) - Tuesday, October 2, 2007
My music videos these days seem to all be confined to the 30 second variety - where lyrics and imagery from well-known songs of the Baby Boomer Generation seem to be pop(ping) up everywhere. My all-time favorite was Janice singing...
Boomer Music--The Persuasions - Saturday, April 7, 2007
Anyone remember The Persuasions? I loved this group! We just received a note from Jerry Lawson, former lead singer of that a capella group, who's still making music and still forgoing instruments. He has a new group, Talk of the...

Google search: tom rush, videos, folk music

February 27, 2009

The Boomer Stampede to Facebook

Times have surely changed since I wrote about being the oldest living human on Facebook a few years ago. Not only are the original college-aged kids now out in the real world and using Facebook for both social and business networking, but Boomers have discovered it too. And, like everything else we do, we do it in a big way. These days you'll find everyone from your distant 4th-cousin-once-removed to your BFF from high school. Lev Grossman, on Time.com, has presented the ultimate top 10 reasons for the old fogie invasion.



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The Oldest Living Human on Facebook - Friday, April 20, 2007
Recently my college-bound son invited me to be his friend on Facebook. Whether this was a temporary lapse into cuteness, sentimentality, or mischief, even he isn't sure. But, like the intrepid internet pioneer I am, I said "golly, sure thing"...
Another Boomer Milestone - Thursday, October 25, 2007
One effect of being 76-million strong is that everything we do is larger-than-life and some sort of public occasion. Sometimes it seems we're the proverbial butterfly fluttering its wings. Case in point--last week the first baby boomer filed for her...
All Baby Boomers, All the Time - Friday, April 2, 2004
Well, aren't we lucky, at least those Boomers who live in the Albany, New York area. According to The Business Review, you are about to get Boom, a new 'feature-oriented monthly newspaper' aimed at baby boomers. According to the article,...

Google search: facebook, time.com, baby boomers, social networking

February 9, 2009

When I'm 64: Boomer Maintenance

Lately whenever I look in the mirror or get dressed I think about 3 thing-- looks, money and old age. Remember when you'd run a comb through your hair, dash some lipstick on and you were done? It seems like every year adds another series of maintenance tasks. Now it takes me half an hour just to get to the baseline.

Do you suppose Medicare will include a provision for hair and body maintenance or will those of us unlucky enough to be poor have to look like an Aesop witch with one long hair growing precisely out of the middle of our chins?

Who will do for us when we can't do for ourselves? Without getting into the realm of Too Much Information, think about daily, weekly and monthly maintenance tasks: --shaving, plucking, filing, coloring, bleaching, moisturizing, masking, pumicing, blow-drying -- various body parts. What happens when we can't reach our toenails? Do they grow into curving yellow claws? Can you think of someone who'll take care of them...for free? Maybe some of you lucky enough to have willing & able daughters or...who?

Do we really want to be at the mercy of overly-busy nursing home attendants or a kindly student intern at the senior center? Or maybe we need to make sacred pacts with our closest friends: I'll do that (too-personal-to-mention) task for you if you'll do it for me. Instead of saving for a dream vacation home or a spiffy car, we should be putting money away for a personal assistant, and not a digital one.

But then I read John Mortimer's obituary in the NY TImes and it quoted his bookThe Summer of a Dormouse: A Year of Growing Old Disgracefully and this really struck me:
"The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous."

Which leads me to another way of thinking about this----maybe we just won't give a crap: "Hey, I have a moustache--live with it."

What do you think?



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John Cleese Speaks Out - Thursday, July 13, 2006
One of the advantages of growing older is that I forget what I read six months ago, so humor columns are funny all over again. Like the one I had stumbled upon last winter. In case you missed it... OK--we've...
But I Don't Feel Good!--Boomers' Health - Thursday, June 7, 2007
I thought it was just me. But John Tierney, who writes for the New York Times, Science Times, describes research showing that Boomers report more problems with their health than older generations did when they were in their fifties. Are...
Signs of Aging (Hipsters) - Tuesday, July 10, 2007
You know, sometimes you look up and your life has become a Kodak commercial. (I love making these sort of references - it's a kind of generational inside joke). Turn around and there's hair growing in strange places. You can't...

Google search: boomers, aging, John Mortimer

January 29, 2009

A Boomer on Boomers

We've enjoyed Michael Winerip's Parenting column in the New York Times, mainly because his kids are relatively close in age to ours, so we were sad to see it end.

But wait! He's back! And now he's writing about...well...hmm....baby boomers. The new column is called Generation B, probably because Aging Hipsters was taken. First article talks about talking about Boomers and lists some of us who are particularly impressive. Including our new president, who probably really wishes he weren't one.

With the kids out of the house, it's only natural to turn reflective about age. All those years we had kids at home to keep us feeling young, in touch, and way too busy to think--what a welcome distraction that was. We're looking forward to this addition to boomerography.



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Boomers on the Move - Saturday, August 2, 2008
There was an interesting essay in the Sunday NY Times written by a 30-something about her parents' decision to pick up and move to Hong Kong. So many of us are still watching the last of our children leave and...
College Redux - Tuesday, April 4, 2006
A recent article by Lisa Belkin in the New York Times Magazine offered a retirement solution I hadn't thought of--I can go back to live at college! In efforts to stop mass boomer migration and to provide us with...
Why Boomers Acting Like They're 25 May Not Be So Bad - Sunday, December 17, 2006
Every year the New York Times Magazine puts out their Year in Ideas issue and one of the entries should appeal to (and explain) some of us. Psychological neoteny or, 'the retention of youthful attitudes and behaviors into later adulthood,"...

Google search: new york times, boomers, baby boomers, michael winerip

January 24, 2009

Mrs. Hughes: Boomer Humor

For starters, she's middle-aged. For seconders, she's funny. Did I mention she began her career as a comic at age 49? Interesting article from 1981 in the New York Times about creativity in old age. (Not that we're old, of course.) While it has nothing to do with Mrs. Hughes, parenting or comedy, it does offer even more inspiration for us potential second lifers and late bloomers.



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Baby Boomer Humor "You Take The Low Road, And I Will, Too" - Wednesday, May 5, 2004
by Frank Mullen III He's back. Ralph Nader has, once again, stuck his siphon into the Democratic voting pool, threatening to suck away just enough of the liberal vote to get George W. Bush reappointed. Democrats now hope for a...
New Boomer Humor - Friday, February 20, 2004
We're happy to introduce a new occasional contributor. Frank Mullen (confirmed, card carrying Baby Boomer) commented once, so we promptly went and looked at his site. Yup--he's funny. End of an Era by Frank Mullen III The subject of my...
More Boomer Humor - Monday, March 22, 2004
Frank Mullen dares to speak what we only think. The Flip-side of Forever by Frank Mullen III To: St. Peter From: Director of Internal Investigation Re: Problems in Rock 'n Roll Heaven Dear Sir, As I sit here in the...

Google search: mrs. hughes, boomers, baby boomer humor, comedy, malcolm gladwell

January 22, 2009

Middle Aged Driving

by Kelly Jackson

How midlife driving differs: I live in a neighborhood of blue-haired drivers, and I'm beginning to understand them. This is both dangerous and frightening. Back in the day, when I found myself going 20 in a 35 mph zone, it was because I had just taken the last puff off a big fatty with my friends in the car, and it never occurred to me that my mental state had been altered in such a way as to emulate the blue-hairs.

Now-a-days, my patience level has replaced the haze of THC in my brain, and I applaud those who take their time on the road. Of course, after living and driving in Manhattan for 12 years, I also appreciate those lunatics who pull out of a strip mall, flying across oncoming traffic to swerve into my lane about 6 inches in front of my car. "Nice NY cabbie move," I say to myself. After being captive in the back seat of many a NY cab, I know that when it's your chance, you must take it, seize the day, make your move and hope for the best.


There's More. Click to continue reading "Middle Aged Driving"


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Falling In A Vat Of Chocolate - Monday, April 10, 2006
The Smothers Brothers (you remember them, right?) used to do a bit about the best rescue strategy if you ever found yourself drowning in a vat of chocolate. Their conclusion was yell "FIRE" 'cuz no one will ever come running...
MidLife Grocery Shopping - Wednesday, July 23, 2008
by Kelly Jackson How midlife grocery shopping differs: The first thing I do is look for a parking space in the shade as close to the front door as is humanly possible. I have a handicap tag which I borrow...

Google search: driving, middle-aged drivers, Midlife Gals

January 18, 2009

We Are One (and Boy, Are We Cold)

If you missed this afternoon's Inaugural Celebration--We Are One concert, HBO will be presenting it again this evening. And if you don't subscribe to HBO, get this--they have opened up access to the channel to all of us for this one event. More details at HBO.

Putting aside jaded musical taste, remnants of cynicism, and the football game, this was a wonderful LIVE show: sincere, entertaining and moving at times. Personal fave moments: Soulful Bettye Lavette and just as soulful Jon Bon Jovi; Pete Seeger doing what he's been doing for eons--talking the lyrics a beat ahead so that we can all sing along; Renee Fleming looking ab fab singing the crap out of "You'll Never Walk Alone"; Garth Brooks rousing the audience with--guess....OK, you can't guess-"Shout."

Because of both the place and the date, parallels to the March on Washington were obvious and yet inspiring. Lots of star power speakers made sure we didn't miss that or any other historical significance. And they did a darn fine job.

The presidential family and guests seemed to be having a grand time, although I can't imagine they weren't cold--the girls didn't even have mittens on. My hands got cold just watching.

Like Grant Park, the audience was thrillingly diverse. Where else will you see a balding boomer standing next to young tween black girls and punksters with what looked to be painful piercings and Gen-X parents with kids on their shoulders and they're ALL singing "This Land is Your Land?" and not even ironically.



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Blogging as the New Protest March - Saturday, March 4, 2006
Sometimes the news of the day and one more photo op of George W & Co. dismantling democracy is more than I can take. It drains the energy from my brain and makes me want to crawl under the covers...

Google search: march on washington, inauguration, pete seeger, garth brooks, HBO




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