Thursday, December 16, 2010

Boomer Angst

Members of a tribe can often be its biggest critics. On its Editorial & Comment page, today's Globe & Mail newspaper has a piece rather oddly categorized as 'Boomer Economics'. It's penned by a journalist, Gary Mason, who has a 24-year-old son and, for that reason and from his head shot, he looks to be a shoe-in for a boomer. Mr. Mason is outraged at his son's terrible job prospects and he blames boomers for it: "Our kids could be a lost generation, but boomers don't seem too worried about it." Instead, we are racking up debt and hanging onto our jobs after 65. And we should be deeply ashamed.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Watching People Work

Last week I had the opportunity to watch two young men trim and cable a 50 foot black cherry tree. The tree is just outside my kitchen window and I found myself having several cups of tea while they performed their magic. There were two young men, one an experienced forester and the other a high school student getting his work experience credit. While they worked I made several observations.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

The Me Generation and Body Breakdown

Leah McLaren points out in a recent Globe & Mail piece that: “boomers have a tendency to act like they were the first generation to experience life on Earth”.  As a consequence we are both amazed and in denial at how badly our bodies are holding up. Every generation before assumed infirmity, indeed was grateful to live long enough to get it. In contrast we don’t, and aren’t.

I can’t quite recall when I was first appalled to discover I might be a ‘senior’!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Are YOU are Zoomer?

It’s hard not to come across ‘Zoomers’.If you live near Toronto there's a big show every year in Town. They are under the care of Moses Znaimer of CARP. Even if you haven’t heard of them, you probably get the idea – they are zooming into late life. For this franchise, 60 had better be the new 40!

Friday, November 12, 2010

About this blog

 
Aging and Now the World is Our Oyster
We are a unique generation in the history of mankind. We have lived longer, already, than 95% of the people who have ever lived. We are a generation that has represented the largest percentage of the population since we were born. We have been catered to by the education system, loved by the marketing types, subjected to more changes in society than ever before and are now entering another uncharted territory. 
After retiring from our signature career, on average we are going to live another twenty years. That is equivalent to one-third of the time since we were born. It is a significant amount of time. In fact, there is a good chance that many of us will go to the 90 or even 100 year mark. As much as forty years for many of us represents our whole career. That is a very long time.This blog is for people coming up to or now into retirement, and for folk who can’t or won’t retire. We have been labelled as 'Bleeding Edge Boomers'. We were there when Rock-and-Roll started...and, while we are still rocking along, we continue to pay close attention to the 'quirks and quarks' of life today!  Our spin on today's foibles and prejudices may be quite contrarian at times, but that's a direct result of the many opportunities we've had to see the results of myth and egotism on the quality of living in these 'latter days'!