Archives for April 2024

It’s a thing. Boomers are getting divorced in large numbers. Sixteen million people aged 65 and older in the U.S. lived solo in 2022. That’s 3 times the number who did so in the 1960’s.

Remember when Tipper left Al Gore in 2010. We were shocked –– kind of. They had been married for 40 years. Bill and Melinda Gates? Justin and Sophie Trudeau? Yep, that’s a clear pattern. And it’s not some celebrity thing. Divorce rates for persons over 50 doubled between 1990 and 2010. Currently, one third of all divorces are people over 50.

The covid pandemic may have had some bearing as couples discovered they had different perspectives on vaccines, masking, and the politics of it all in general. Then there’s also unfaithfulness and other transgressions that can send a marriage south. The fact remains that these so called “silver splitters” just get to a place where they want to live apart, to fulfill their own goals untethered by a loveless union.

For many boomers, the option of remaining with a partner in a loveless or unhappy union represents a waste of what they hoped would be some of the best years of their lives. Many of these boomers are remaining single rather than jumping into new relationships and marriage. About 50 per cent remain alone several years after ending their marriages.

The number of single-person households headed by people over 75 is shooting up fast, and expected to number 14 million by 2038. Since most of these boomers show no interest in repartnering, there could be a real crisis in eldercare looming ahead. More often than not, the silver splitters are also splitting their nest eggs, cutting their savings by half. That can add significant pressure on their lifestyle and financial stability.

Not surprisingly, loneliness looms as one of the greatest disadvantages to living alone. Double duh!! Even if the financial situation is relatively stable, boomers going solo report that even when they make numerous social connections and build community involvement, it does not buffer them from a high degree of loneliness.

The trend is clearly going to continue but mental health experts, as well as financial planners, warn that the downsides can outweigh the upsides.

If you’ve contemplated splitting, you might want to heed the words/song by Eric Idle: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

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.

The case for age maximums. Whoa! Are people really talking about that? Yes.

We’ve always had age minimums. You couldn’t get a drivers license until you were 16. You couldn’t vote until you were 21, then it became 18. Workers need to be 14 or 16 for most jobs, and now some politicians want to change that to 12 (and shame on them!). You need to be age 35 to be President (more about that in a moment). Military service requires enlistees to be at least 17. In most states you need to be at least 18 to marry and some pols want to lower that minimum (shame on them too!). You must be 18 to rent a car, and coincidentally the reason for that is because it’s the minimum age to sign a contract.

Perhaps because there’s been so much attention given to Biden’s age (and Trump’s), the discussions about age maximums have come to the fore. Looking at the rationale for age minimums, you would have to conclude that the reasoning behind them was a sense that one must be mature enough to fight, vote, marry, drive or work.

Okay, then why have age maximums? Are we not mature enough? We’re like fine aged cheddar or Parmigiano-Reggiano. If maturity is not the problem, what then? Surveys suggest that most voters believe there should be an age maximum for elected officials. The problem arises when the discussion turns to what the age maximum should be. Should it be the age when they run for office or the age they must resign from office?

One man’s senility is another man’s maverickness (that can’t be a word but it should be). Bernie Sanders was 77 when he ran in 2020, a year older than Biden. Are some 80-somethings still sharp when it comes to decision-making and cognizance? Most definitely the answer is yes. That means it will be very hard to define exactly how old is too old. (Going back to age minimums for a moment, you could also make the case that some 16-year-olds are probably mature enough to vote and possibly more maturely than their parents.)

I don’t want to get paranoid about this, but if there are going to be age maximums for elected officials, couldn’t they cap the drinking age next? Going to have a real problem with that one.

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.

Last year was my fifth year of retirement, and I’m pleased to report I’m getting better at accomplishing very little. In 2023, I read a lot of crime fiction, wrote a bunch of blog posts, took a few road trips, watched a couple dozen shows on TV, walked, stretched, swam, cooked and ate delicious food. Dabbled at art.

I’d say it was a fine year. As a recovering over-achiever, it feels good to enjoy simple pleasures and chill. I don’t really like to keep count, as my last job was all about metrics gone wild. That said, you may be interested to learn I also enjoyed 21 blissful hours of full-body massage and about 100 rounds of golf.

Now for a “deep dive” into retirement math.

At an average of 4.5 hours per round, that’s 450 hours of golf. If one assumes a 40-hour work week, 450 hours converts to 11.25 weeks of golf, and that is the equivalent of playing golf for more than two months of the year!

My massages added up to $1,960. However, I don’t dye my hair, so let’s deduct $125 per month from massage expenditures. That leaves us at $460, which a working person such as myself might have spent on makeup, shoes, dry cleaning or even Botox. So, let’s just wipe the slate clean and accept that in retirement math, my massages are free.

There might be something to metrics after all. Seriously, I don’t think I’m playing enough golf.

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

You’ve seen the news about Orca whales attacking the rudders of ships off the Iberian coast? Animals gone amuck. A sci-fi movie for real. Well, I can relate in my own backyard way. I’ve got woodchucks…ground hogs…whatever you want to call them on my property, giving me a taste of nature in attack mode.

It started one morning when I went to my workshop in the basement where I have a large window-well above my chop saw. I cut a cleat for a box I was making, looked up and noticed a family of woodchucks in the bottom of the well staring at me like I was a chimpanzee in a zoo and they were visitors on the other side of the glass. So, I chucked a piece of wood. Scared them. But how much wood can you chuck at a…never mind. See, they were getting to me.

I had noticed a burrow in my flower garden. Well, more than noticed. I stepped into it. Up to my knee. Had a hell of a time getting my foot out. Limped around for a couple of days. Something had to be done. Since I live on the edge of a smallish city, I couldn’t fire a gun unnoticed or safely. I tried a live trap baited with cantaloupe. Groundhogs like cantaloupe in case you’re interested in their dietary habits. So, I caught one. Looked like one of the those in the window well. But with woodchucks, it’s hard to tell. Anyhow, this guy was not happy with me. Boy can they scowl.

Animal control couldn’t/wouldn’t help with disposing of the critter. So, I tried the humane thing of putting the trap in a wheelbarrow and trundling out to a nearby woods where he happily scurried into the brush. Two days later I spotted another ‘chuck nibbling my newly planted bean sprouts. I watched. He stared at me, as if to say, ‘Yes?’ Took another bite. Had a lot of attitude for someone who lives in a hole in the ground. Could it be the same guy I had exiled the day before? Hard to tell.

Caged him again. This time I got a can of day-glo orange spray paint, spritzed his tail before hauling him off to the woods. Next morning, I noticed a groundhog with an orange tail scurrying across my lawn. Caught him again. Boy, he must be cognitively challenged or a foody hooked on a fresh-fruit diet.

Time for another strategy to get him and his kin off my property. I bought a gizmo you attach to your tail pipe, put a blanket over the live trap, put both together in my garage and started the car. An hour later, I pulled back the blanket to find an angry woodchuck glaring at me. Maybe he didn’t appreciate having his tail painted?

So, anyway, when I see those posts about Orcas, I sure hope oceanographers can come up with better animal management strategies than I could.

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/