Archives for February 2024

Just when you thought Boomers were getting blamed for everything, it turns out some younger generations think we are on the right side of some issues/contemporary trends.

A Reddit user posed the question: What are some things that Boomers got right? The following is a sampling of the feedback received. It may give you hope that all is not lost, and that younger generations can see that we get some things right after all. So, winner, winner, chicken dinner for you!

App Exhaustion — Boomers are just tired of apps. Stop making us download an app and set up an account for everything. You’re just collecting our information.

Outdoor Kids Play — Make them go outside. Take them to a park. Let them stop using their thumbs for a while so they get some fresh air.

Overpriced Concerts — $125 for one seat! That can’t be right. There’s some crazy inflation at work there.

Phones at concerts — Take a few pictures of your favorite act but what’s the deal with trying to record the whole concert? You’re never going to watch it again and you’re annoying the people around you. QUIT IT!

Kids Online — Is it really a good idea to let young kids have unfettered access to what’s online? A lot of adults shouldn’t have access never mind 10 year olds.

Tablet Babysitters — Watching parents ignore their kids in a restaurant or public space while the kids overdose on their tablet games. Try paying attention to them and engaging them in conversation instead of using tech toys as your babysitter.

Face Tattoos — Do we even have to go there? What kind of person thinks that’s a good idea? Removable studs are one thing, but permanent tattoos? Sheesh!

Gender Reveals — Dumb, dumb, dumb. How did this stupid reason for friends and family to gather ever get started?

TV Volume Is Screwed UP — Everyone, young and old, agrees that the volume is really effed up. Music comes over too loud and when you scale it back then the dialogue is a whisper. With all the technology out there, can’t they do better?

Blinded by the Light — It’s not just the pre-cataract surgery crowd! Everyone complains that headlights are too bright and night driving can be dangerous. Once again, can’t the automotive engineers do any better?

This is by no means a complete list, but isn’t reassuring to know that it’s not just aging Boomers who think we’ve got some problems that need solutions.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. You can also visit his author page here. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is also available on Amazon. But that’s not all. You can also purchase the Best of BoomSpeak on Amazon.

Nice easy walks and gentle swims … you’d think I was fully recovered from overdoing it a bit in January. However, just when I thought all my body parts were working in harmony, out of the clear blue of the western sky comes excruciating knee pain that brought all my good efforts to a halt.

After a few days of rest, heat, ice, Tylenol and Advil, it seems to be fine. I did a short test walk yesterday and a slightly longer test walk today, and so far, so good. But still, I’ve been exercising regularly for 50 years, and it shocks me how quickly things can go wrong.

When I complained to my husband about the pain, he said, “Ah, yes. The repair crew.”

Sometimes the guy is genius. When something hurts, and I start to feel sorry for myself, I think, calm down. It’s just the repair crew, and I am in need of repairs. They’re trying to fix this mess. Certainly, there are many ways to cope with pain, and I suspect most of us will dabble in those dark arts more and more as we age.

Growing older is not easy, but let’s consider ourselves lucky if we can get through it in reasonably good cheer and enjoy the time that is given to us.

Interestingly, I just finished a fantastic book that explores the possibilities of navigating adversity with dignity, grace and humor … so maybe some of it rubbed off on me. Historical fiction at its finest, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, tells the story of Count Alexander Rostov, a Russian aristocrat living under house arrest in a luxury hotel for 30 years.

One of my favorite passages (and there are many) is when a friend talks to him about wanting to leave Russia and experience the conveniences of modern life. Count Rostov replies:

I’ll tell you what is convenient. To sleep until noon and have someone bring you your breakfast on a tray. To cancel an appointment at the very last minute. To keep a carriage waiting at the door of one party, so that on a moment’s notice it can whisk you away to another. To sidestep marriage in your youth and put off having children altogether. These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka — and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.

I loved this book. It’s literary without being too fancy-pants. Just a fantastic story in a spectacular setting with great characters and thoughts and ideas that might haunt (or inspire) you for decades. If you should be so fortunate.

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.

 

Grace was a fine woman. I loved her and her taste in men…after all, she liked me. When you both are widowed, there’s a kind of openness to a mature relationship. We’ve both ‘been there/done that’ with long sincere marriages, children, retirement. It’s a kind of agreement to enjoy the moment while we can. So, there we were in the formal garden of the Alcazar palace in historic Seville. Beautiful. Serene. Chest high, carefully trimmed hedges created a twisting, turning maize of pathways into the exotic world of Arabian nights.

The only problem was that I had to take a leak and we were on the ground level and the lavatories were up and behind the surrounding second-story balconies. Not wanting to break the enchanted mood by a sudden departure, I leaned close to the hedges in our narrow lane and watered the plants.

Grace said, “Do you hear water running?”

I zipped up and sighed in relief.

Her forehead wrinkled. “Wait,” she said, “did you just…?”

I just squeezed my lips and shrugged.

You know, there can come telling moments in relationships at the most unexpected times. Turns out this was one of them. Grace didn’t speak to me over our snack of coffee and rolls, and during our walk back to the hotel, and actually for the rest of the day. Who knew that my sweetheart was so sensitive? But I guess every relationship finds a moment when attitudes and feelings get exposed for the first time. Too bad we had to cross the Atlantic and enter an 8th century Muslim palace to find a tell-tale moment of truth.

I tried to keep my cool. I knew it wouldn’t do me any good to justify or deny what I did. I also wasn’t going to apologize. The little boy inside of me was chin-out and stiff jawed.

The next morning at breakfast, I accidentally knocked over my water glass. Our waiter grabbed the towel off his wrist, sopped up the spill and then squeezed the wet rag into the flower pot on the table. I caught Grace’s eye, lifted my shoulders and eyebrows…as if to say ‘see, guys know how to deal with excess fluids.’ It took a moment, but her lips curled slightly. Then we chatted happily for the rest of breakfast.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/

There are loads of issues that can divide millennials from boomers, but one of the most curious to me is printed books vs Kindle. For a generation that’s hardcore when it comes to being online, texting, Tweeting, etc., it comes as a surprise that so many of them seek the pleasure of reading a physical book – that is words printed on paper.

Some millennials explain this fixation with paper books as a means of snuggling up with a digital-detox tool. Okay. I find that strange but valid. Some millennials admit to making notes in the margins and/or folding corners of pages that they want to come back to (presumably they own the book rather than defiling a borrowed tome).

It’s hard for me to not sound like a cheerleader for Kindles (especially since the parent company involves/revolves around he whose name cannot be said out loud), but the darn things are just so convenient.

You can read in a darkened space (think bedroom or airplane) without disturbing your bed/seat mate. Along with that feature, you can go to dark mode so that the type appears as white on black, making it emit even less light while still being highly readable. When you close the cover, it saves your place. Conversely, when you reopen the cover, it takes you back to where you left off. Libraries have oodles (Merriam-Webster still indicates that is a real word, meaning a lot.) of Kindle books that you can download directly to your device – for free. Yes, the paper editions are free as well, but require you to drive/walk to the library to pick them up and take home.

Regular Kindle users will note here that I’ve saved the very best advantages for last. A Kindle allows you to change the size of the font. It sounds like such a small thing, but as our eyesight degrades, it’s a big deal that one can boost the font size. Not only can it be enlarged, one can also select what font you would like. As if that’s not enough, you can also alter the contrast to make the type darker black or the background a brighter white.

With the impending doom of artificial intelligence totally wrecking our lives, I think it’s comforting to know that the simple, modest Kindle does everything I need. Plus, now I can use my bookcase to store my collection of papier-mâché chickens.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. You can also visit his author page here. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is also available on Amazon. But that’s not all. You can also purchase the Best of BoomSpeak on Amazon.

This morning too cold for my stiffening heart, I’m on the treadmill in my basement, forced to imagine frost across front lawns, some ice in roadside ditches, my breath held a few moments on the air. Or there could be flurries by now, the last grey leaves shuddering in December wind.

A glance at the odometer tells me that by now I would’ve passed the pond where herons nested earlier this year, and in a few more tenths of a mile reach the little bridge across that unnamed creek. Instead, I press a button to simulate a bracing uphill climb, making a virtue of the virtual.

Hard to feel Wordsworthian down here, hard to channel a line from some great ode, so little I can see of nature that is mine, or anyone’s, as I walk in place, numbers glowing on the console in front of me, hovering half an arm’s-length away no matter how many steps I take, speed and distance and calories burned displayed onscreen, my pulse there a little hopping ball.

Meanwhile my mind keeps playing versions of those old cartoons, scenes in which I’m caught and flattened on this contraption, dragged under before rolling around and around, a mere stain on the turning belt, helpless against such a machine, this tired metaphor for modern life, for the world—let’s face it—too much with us and somehow not enough.

James Scruton