Tag Archives: baby boomers

Fifty Years Ago Today

— Underneath the chilly gray November sky
We can make believe that Kennedy is still alive and
Were shooting for the moon and smiling Jackie’s driving by

– lyrics from Andy Prieboy’s “Tomorrow, Wendy”

I can only imagine that Andy Prieboy (who is the same age as I am) lived somewhere in the Midwest, somewhere in the regional vicinity of Milwaukee, because November 22, 1963 was indeed chilly and gray, and also, at least where we were, raining.

It was a day of tears, that’s for sure.

The blogger in 1963.

I was in third grade at St. Sebastian Catholic School on Milwaukee’s west side, on Washington Boulevard. We lived just a couple of blocks away from the church and its nearly overcrowded, baby-boom elementary school. Back then, of course, our moms — everybody’s mom, basically — was a homemaker so most (though not all) of the kids went home for lunch.

St. Sebastian

I remember coming back late that day — which was really odd, because I was the Best Little Boy in the World, and certainly, never late for school. We were due back at 12:45 p.m. and I so remember looking up at that tower and realizing I was late. It must’ve been because the bells were going off, as they did every quarter hour. For years I remembered looking up at a clock on that day, but as you can plainly see in the photo, there is no clock on that bell tower. So we realize memory is an unreliable narrator. It was, after all, 50 years ago.

How is it possible I can remember things that happened 50 years ago?

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I remember hearing later on that the president had been shot in Dallas, also in the Central Time Zone, about 12:30, and I figured I was just finishing my lunch or putting on my coat or something like that (like I said earlier, it was raining/drizzling there, and it was cold).

In the third grade class I was in, we had a nun teacher in the morning and a lay teacher in the afternoon (the morning nun was ancient; I don’t think she could have gotten through an entire day — and in fact, she died later that school year!)

What they did in those pre-internet/pre-ubiquitous TV days was to put the radio on the school PA system. But it was horrible quality – you couldn’t understand much of anything they said. Static and yelling. I do remember some of the kids crying – the girls of course, because the boys don’t cry. Soon the decision was made to herd the entire school into the church for a prayer for the President, and then they let us go home, early. (November 22 was a Friday that year, as it is again in 2013.)

My parents were both home, on the couch in front of our little black and white TV. It was really odd to see my father home in the middle of the afternoon. Both he and Mom were crying, which was much more disturbing to me. I believe that’s the only time I’d ever (to this day) seen them both in tears at once.

We spent the next few days watching all the horrible events of that weekend unfold in front of the TV. I had a new baby brother, David, born just a couple of weeks before, so I remember taking my turn holding him on my lap. Without reservation, the assassination of President Kennedy was the most profound event to ever happen in my young life.

If the “60s” really ended the day Saigon fell (which was actually in 1975), then perhaps the “60s” really began that day in Dallas. Nothing was ever quite the same after that.

Ann Brenoff says just be yourself and I think she’s right

Please talk to me.

I’ve loved Ann Brenoff’s writing before, and I really liked this more recent post. So refreshing, really, to come to accept yourself and then use that new-found strength of position in the job interview market. What a concept!

Ann suggests admitting to or owning your real age, and turning that on its head to your benefit. My own experience with Job Hunt “boot camps” and such was that there was a huge divergence on this issue, with some people suggesting you put on the resume the years of college or your jobs in past decades, while others counseled to keep them out, as it would be the kiss of death. So in other words, there is/was no answer to this.

I’m of the opinion that it makes more sense to leave them in. After all, you’ve worked for that experience, might as well try and use it to your benefit. And really, if the person on the other side of the desk is an ageist douche, do you want to work there anyway? I doubt it.

Which leads me to dyeing hair – not! On us men, anyway, looks absurd, it always looks fake. Think Mitt Romney: did it help? I don’t think it did. Job hunt gurus often suggest other humiliating insults to self, like losing weight, getting a new wardrobe, whitening one’s teeth, etc., which I suppose are all good things, I mean no one wants to work with a slob — but the truth is, trying to shave years off your life in the pursuit of our national fetish of youth worship, will only have slim results for the vast majority. At a certain point — I mean, you’re 60, you’re just not going to look 30, nor should you. If Cher has given up, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Brenoff says accept that the reason you’re in the interview is that they wanted someone with your experience, i.e., give them credit for reading between the lines. They’re not stupid. They figured out how old you were before you came in, and they want you in the room.
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She says don’t act like a parent, but talk about experience in a way that the younger person (perhaps the one hiring you) can relate to. Young people are curious, they really are, although so many people today seem to be blase, or just trying to appear cool. I’ve personally met younger people who admit to not knowing everything. A shock, I know, as I certainly did when I was that age!

There is that communication generation gap — texting vs email vs calling — what I’m finding out is that everyone is different. In my previous PR jobs, those people just love to chat chat chat on the phone, that was always highly preferred to emailing someone. I have noticed that people under the age of 40 (give or take a few years) absolutely love to text, and I do have relationships/friendships with several people in their 20s and we never talk on the phone. Come to think of it, I may never have spoken to these people on the phone. Ever. It’s text and other online forums like Facebook messaging.

Overall, what I liked so much about Ann’s refreshing take on all this is that she’s considered the advice she got out there, in the depression that we’re still in, and came out the other side and said you know what – you’re wrong. It’s always best to be authentic (and I don’t mean that in any kind of EST-y, Forum-like way), to just be yourself. The best advice I’ve ever gotten job-hunt wise was from someone who told me to “relax and be yourself. They’re either looking for someone like you or they’re not, so your only job is to be yourself.”

And what if they’re really not looking for someone like Jim Arnold (or insert your name here)? That’s when I become the boss of me.

That Whole Daddy Thang

My daddy photo.

OK, first of all, Alan Cumming as a daddy? I don’t think so. Also, Tom Ford is a little too fancy-schmancy to be a daddy. He can be of a certain age, for sure: most of us get there, and we’re lucky to be there. Anderson maybe, but just barely; I believe he’s what you might call prematurely gray, therefore prematurely daddy. Though I’m certainly not complaining. . . and the fourth photo, I don’t know who this guy is, but obviously that’s to my detriment, as not only is said subject quite attractive, he’s also apparently famous enough to be photographed in front of a step-and-repeat banner. I blame this not on senility but on my aversion to pop culture; I simply don’t watch enough TV. Cause let’s face it, I’m an old fart.

This is a well-written and funny article, as everything Mike Albo touches is. I enjoyed it very much. That’s not to say that this “daddy” thing is anything new at all; I think it might be new to the writer and so we all see things from our own perspective. And that’s fine.

I’ve been treading in the dangerous daddy waters now for quite a few years (more or less 15 years longer than a certain writer). And thank the goddess for that! There was a time in my late 30s – early 40s where I could not get arrested in a gay bar or in an AOL chat room (yes, Mary, I’m that old). But then age takes over, as it will, and suddenly guys my age still don’t want anything to do with me, but college men (and probably a few years older, up to about 30 or so) do.

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I started seeing younger men around the turn of the century, and I’ll never forget the first time I took a college student out to dinner (I was in my early 40s at the time). A really good way to be put in your place and to be totally ignored by the “free market” — by that I mean the turning heads at the restaurant were 100% about my very attractive dark curly-haired date, and I might as well have been invisible. Maybe I was!

I’m still “Facebook friends” with this person, though he lives a continent away now. That one either got away, or just didn’t last, but I’ve continued to enjoy the occasional attentions of men that age, always constantly amazed that they’re interested in such a difference in years.

One of the nicest things about this kind of attraction from the younger set is that they really are interested in someone who’s genuinely older; as in, there’s no expectation of a six-pack (at least of the abdominal variety) or a smooth body, no wrinkles and hair with a full complement of pigment. No, what attracts these guys is maturity in look and in attitude. Given the general unforgiving nature and youth worship of our gay culture, it’s a relief being valued for WYSIWYG (even if it might be someone’s fetish).

The one thing in the article I might take an issue with is where Mike says that his group of 40-something guys is the largest group of gay-identified men to grow older – I’d like to know where the stats on that come from. The generation that’s older – the Baby Boomers – just has way, way more people in it, gay and straight and all the rest. Even despite AIDS mortality, I think that’s still a bigger group of out gay men who are getting older.

Anyway, I’m glad daddies continue to be popular. We certainly don’t want to be going anywhere anytime soon!

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Older and Out of Work: What to do, what to do. . .

Boomer convention. Flickr photo copyright Dr. Darm

For anyone who’s interested in the topic of unemployment – such a huge problem in our country, and truly, worldwide right now – and which will get worse with this sequester – this New York Times Room for Debate opinion section will be of interest.

Specifically, here, “experts” weigh in on the older demographic, those over 50-55 and older who still want to work and can’t find work. A number of approaches to this problem are discussed, for instance, having Baby Boomers go back and work at internships (unpaid?) and a rebuttal to that argument; a plea for a generic Baby Boomer skill upgrade; an argument that it’s not “senior” jobs that are needed, but good jobs in general; and one other opinion that’s mostly a denial that there’s any specific problem at all with older workers, except for the issue of once having been laid off, it’s much more difficult to return to work at an older age.

As in, age discrimination! It exists; we are an ageist society in so many ways, but especially in terms of hiring. Of course, it’s officially illegal, so no one ever says they’re not hiring you ’cause you remind them of Mom or Dad or because of your gray hair you didn’t dye, they say you’re so “overqualified” or “not the right fit for us.”

For me, what was most instructive were not these solicited editorials, but readers reactions to them – if you do go to the section, be sure to read some of the comments. I’d say that personally, I agree with the opinion that internships are for kids who have no job experience. Let’s face it, after 35-40 years in the workplace, you’re not an intern. There’s that thing called transferable skills – believe me, if you’ve worked at jobs for that long a period and have kept them, you’ve got plenty of skill to offer an employer.
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Another thing that’s always irritated me in the standard stereotype of the older worker is this idea that we’re not technologically sophisticated or leery of tech in the workplace. Oh, really? Who do you think it was who was at the forefront of all those changes, when all those machines were introduced, and then upgraded, over and over, into the workplace?

Somebody would show up with a PC and put it on your desk and plug it in to a network and say, “OK. Here you go!” And there was no training class. There might have been a manual; likely not. You had to show the ingenuity to figure it all out yourself, because nobody else had any ideas either. So we did that. Over and over, from word processing machines to faxes to PCs to smart phones and tablets – so please don’t tell me the older worker is afraid of innovation in the workplace.

Related story, also from the Times:

Older isn’t Better, it’s Brutal

More from “The Forest Dark”

Bourgeois Pig, photo by sandrosamigos

FICTION: A bit more from the unedited novel-in-progress, The Forest Dark, making use of L.A. location Bourgeois Pig. Hear the traffic. See the arguing baby boomers. It could get ugly:

Noah and Eden sat outside at the Bourgeois Pig tables on Franklin Avenue so she could smoke.
Since she was buying, Eden figured Noah would put up with the traffic noise. He could have ordered anything, but Noah was Noah: a simple coffee, black, with an extra shot of espresso.
He looked around as if it were unfamiliar territory. She assumed he really hadn’t treated himself much, at least in recent years when things had been so tough with money.
“Whenever I’m down here I always try to figure out who the Scientologists are,” he said, looking down the block at several pedestrians.
Eden still fumed inside about Barbara, about Zeke, about Warren fucking Medina and his Louie request.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s their church right across here. I think all these businesses are really shadow corporations of theirs for money laundering and other activities.”
She hadn’t noticed the sign until then: Scientology Celebrity Centre. Maybe he was right. After all, he’s the one who’s lived here the whole time, not her.
“What is wrong with you?” he asked. Continue reading →

America is Diseased: Mocking the Dying, Profiting off the Work of Uninsured Artists

America is Diseased: Mocking the Dying, Profiting off the Work of Uninsured Artists |

How did we get this way?

Or is it only an illusion or myth that we were, collectively, any other way – other than selfish, self-centered bastards only out for Number One?

I used to be insulted at the concept of the “Greatest Generation” – basically those people who grew to adulthood during the Depression then fought World War II and either died for their country or came back and built the economic powerhouse that was the American Middle Class. I was insulted because that was not my generation, those born in the generation after, we Baby Boomers, those of us who reaped the success of the most robust economy the world has ever known.

But now I really do see the point of the adulation and see that it’s accurate. These were people, many of whom probably did not agree with the war effort, who nonetheless selflessly joined the effort to defeat the fascists because they realized that a group effort would work, this national project would work, that the alternative was hell.

Consequently, they returned home and kept that “we’re all in this together” spirit of the battlefield, realizing that the collective building of schools, of roads, sewers, hospitals and all of that was for the good of everybody, and that nobody got to where they did only because of their own sweat or their own grace. These people knew this. They felt it in their bones.

How did we forget? Because the infrastructure was built. Somewhere in the late 70s or early 80s we, as a country, decided the U.S. was built as far as it was going to be and now it was time to take the spoils, to be greedy, to get as much for ourselves as we could before it all came crashing down, and hopefully we’d either be set or we’d be dead by then.

It’s really not a pretty picture, and didn’t have to turn out this way. I have no idea how we can recapture that essence in this country. Still, I hope it’s not a lost cause. Any ideas?

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Shock of Gray: The future, today

Shock of Gray

Just finished reading Ted C. Fishman’s Shock of Gray, his non-fiction examination of the world’s aging phenomenon and what it portends for all of us.

Fishman tells his story in a series of snapshots from various locales, giving us a view of aging we can extrapolate to our own states, cities, families. Interesting that just as I write this on Friday, November 26, both The New York Times and our local paper The Desert Sun both have front-page stories focusing on aging populations.

Fishman’s stories from Shock are taken from around the world. When I think of aging Europe, I think of Scandinavia mostly – I don’t know why – perhaps because I know those countries have a very low birthrate. But Fishman concentrates on Spain, which is both illuminating and compelling, particularly with the recent financial problems that country has had – which were surfacing probably about the time this book was being published.

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As for the U.S., the stories in the book focus on Florida (Sarasota, in particular) and Rockford, Illinois. Fantastic snapshots into what makes these places tick – or not – at this point in time. Everything from seniors reinventing themselves late in life down in Florida – as well as “making” work for themselves – to the importation of help from abroad to take care of the elderly in Rockford – provide hints as to where it might be good and not so good to get old.

One thing we have a tendency to forget is how relatively recent wide longevity is. Throughout human history, death was the constant companion of human populations, as people tended to be fine one day, sick the next, then dead soon after. It’s only since the early part of the 2oth century that advances in public health made possible the large numbers of people who reach their 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond.

I’ve got an aunt who will turn 90 next month. It seemed to me to be a momentous occasion (and it IS, of course) but less so with the knowledge of how many other nonagenarians there are out there!