Archives for September 2024

In case you missed it, we’re approaching “peak 65” which marks the ascension of the youngest baby boomers turning 65. Why is that a big deal? For one thing, it may set off a huge wave of retirements. Good, say younger workers. Get out of our way so we can take those jobs.

Not so fast. Don’t believe the hype. All baby boomers are not rich. In fact, most of these retirees coming up soon are financially unprepared to stop working. According to the latest analysis, these retiring boomers may risk living in poverty.

In the aggregate, boomers are rich, or at least the wealthiest slice of the generation. That is if they are White and have a college degree. Boomers who are women, people of color and who only have a high school education are lagging way behind and will soon realize that their resources are inadequate for retirement. How bad off are they? One in four workers nearing retirement have zero dollars in savings. And with little time to make up that shortfall, their situation only grows worse.

We are facing that all too familiar situation where the common misconception is that all baby boomers are filthy rich slugs who are sucking the economy dry while younger workers suffer. The reality plays out much differently. Peak boomers with only a high school degree have saved a median of $75,300 for retirement, compared with $591,158 for college graduates. Social Security is designed to replace only 40% of a person’s working income, while the average benefit is about $23,000 per year — far from enough to provide a comfortable retirement.

The only upside is that younger workers such as Gen X, millennial and even younger workers will finally get what they have been clamoring for – the vacated jobs of baby boomers. The hidden cost of this labor transfer may be higher social security taxes to support struggling boomers.

You can’t say you didn’t see this coming if you read this or followed the news. Boomer poverty is in our near future and it’s real.

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.

Did you ever find yourself in the middle of telling a grandson an exciting, rambling episode from your past when you noticed his eyes glaze over or worse, sneak a peek at the screen in his hand? I have a tendency to reminisce…a lot. I don’t know about you, but my backstories are always bumping my heels like I’m dragging my old Radio Flyer wagon filled with photo albums demanding to be opened and shared. Telling important, and not so important, tales of times and events in my past is a way to extend and prolong my life beyond my years…a kind of spoken diary for grandkids who might never read a hand-written one, let alone a cursive one, when I’m gone.

My grandkids can show just a little interest or even be politely indulgent enough of granddad to listen a bit when I intone, ‘When I was your age…’ Still, I want to try something new, an alternative to my windy oral tradition. How about a revolving display on the family room wall with assorted snapshots from a throw-back data dump—the attic picture box? The challenge would be to change it frequently to compete with the current generation’s high-speed info turnover on handheld screens.

Display#1: Grampa, bare bottom up. Grampa in a buggy. Grampa on a teeter-totter.

Display #2: Grampa fishing on a lake. Playing baseball without uniforms or umpires or snacks brought by cheering moms to the Little League park.

Display #3: Grampa kneeling next to his football helmet. Grampa carrying a protest sign. Grampa in uniform.

You get the idea—parts of our life spread out, but so offered that the child has to ask before we rush to tell, providing too much information unasked. It doesn’t take much to become boring and lose your audience. Not nice. Ask any comedian who has ‘died’ in the middle of his act. Ultimately, less can be more even if it’s the captivating, vivid stuff in our minds.

It’s sad to think that we have so much information to offer, so many exciting experiences, so many educational or cautionary tales that cry to be passed along before our personal heritage gets lost in the fog of time. Perhaps a rotating wall of fame will compete with computer games for the attention if not the absorption of a grandchild’s imagination while rounding out his family history.

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/

I’ll take the tats, the handlebars, the Mennonite beards. But I cast a gimlet eye when you all call me Dear. It may just be wait-person patois among the twentyish or thirtyish. But when it’s applied to diners of a certain age, it’s the D-word. Isn’t the leisure business is in the business of making guests feel like VIPs? Unless the meaning has changed to Vapid, Infirm, and Pitiable, you’re not giving me that vibe! The chummy nickname for kids and grandparents pours a pitcher of ice water on what otherwise might have been a cool night out.

Every year past fifty, women face an increased likelihood of being deared or honeyed by well-meaning people who’ve theoretically been hired to please. Puhl-eze stop it.

Mental health advocate Rona Maynard captures the deflating message of the D-word perfectly. “[It’s distressing when] people young enough to be our children are addressing us as children,” she says in “Don’t Call Me Dear!”

When my 75-year-old self shows up in a hip, new place, I’m very likely to get these chin-chucking, head-patting, cheek-pinching endearments. I often protest them—with mixed results. Even when my ask is granted, the dear tends to lope back at evening’s end, swiped off the table like leftover breadcrumbs.

I’m campaigning to kill this four-letter word in the service-industry. And I’m asking people to join me. We’ll also do in hon, honey, sweetie, sugar (or any other noun that might be suffixed with the word pie).

For the hipster server, the terms might feel like a carefully aged artisanal language, signaling a nod to the Shirls and Bevs who fill bottomless cups in homey, un-self-reflecting locales. But being deared in a culinary hot spot makes the dearie feel not just put off, but put down. A lug nut wrapped in a luxe burrito.

Yet the term’s gone viral. I’ve had dear sightings at restaurants, hotels, and shops in popular destinations with hundreds, even thousands, of miles in between. Venice Beach. Austin. Brooklyn. How dear am I, I have to wonder. Could my dearness have a national reach?
Dear is a fundamental downer. Because age happens. Whoever you are now, whatever your style or social milieu, every one of you is heading in my direction.

I’m talking about you, Cooper!

So why not join my dear kill while you’re young and dear-free? I can guarantee: if you drop the dear my dears, your future will thank you.

Suellen Mayfield is a writer living in Venice, CA

My old friend recently moved to an elegant suburban retirement home. Her luxurious housing complex is just a short train ride from Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Many retired professors live there – from Harvard, MIT, and Wellesley, even international residents from as far away as Chile. You’d have to be in the upper brackets to afford the place. They love their spacious open-plan apartments surrounded by gardens. A concert hall hosts well-known professional musicians. Residents can order vegan, gluten free meals, and use the full gym and pool, (in fact more than one pool,). They insist that the staff of immigrant women who serve them are “so lovely.”

My friend described how residents lecture each other on their own specialties: “The political economy of Lichtenstein”, “Electronic Music’s Future”, “Critical Race Theory and Crime”, even “African American history”, though no African Americans live there. However, the administration plans a diversity initiative to recruit folks like that famous professor on Public TV, who was arrested for breaking into his own house.

My friend finds the contentious disputes amusing. Those elderly professors love to argue. They must miss the verbal jousting on their college campuses. The art history specialist objected to the framed prints by great white men lining the hallways. She managed to replace most of them with work by women artists. The public health professor demanded that everyone be screened for Covid, but after heated debates, she lost to the administration that wouldn’t spend the extra cash. Still feisty, many residents, even those using walkers and wheelchairs, held a protest outside the local bank demanding they divest their fossil fuel stocks, (though I suspect many profited from those same stocks).

After visiting, I considered putting my name on the very long waiting list, but when I checked with my financial advisor, she said, “forget it—you could never afford it.” What options are there for middle income people like me? I’d love to enter a community of active, thoughtful seniors in such a utopian setting, but for those of us too poor to afford the monthly stipend and the large buy in price, (which doesn’t go to one’s descendants), I guess we’re stuck in our own homes – if we’re lucky enough to have one. We’ll go on repairing the leaky roof, shoveling the snow, and carting out the trash for as long as we’re upright. Since exercise is good for you, maybe we’re the lucky ones.

Judith Beth Cohen lives in undisclosed location decidedly not in Cambridge, MA

I went to our family reunion at one of my nephew’s house. Beautiful place on a lake. All kinds of toys like boats and paddle-boards and floating docks. And that was just the lake. The rest of the property had a thriving garden and a rope slide and volleyball nets and bocce balls. Did I mention that my family is Italian? Yeah the food was over-abundant, and all the cookies were ethnic specialties.

Anyway, I mingled and hugged and kissed until at one point I stopped to look for the usual knot of gray-haired elders quietly observing and gently smiling. At first I thought they were hiding—the guys playing cards in a corner and the wives sorting out the food. But then I started scanning, scoping for ‘white hairs’ clustered in clumps. There weren’t any. Passing a mirror I realized that I was the only pale-head in the crowd…well me and my brother, Gus. A moment of truth—we were now the latest against the bookend on the family shelf. Somehow, all those cherished aunts and uncles, who added history and heritage to weddings and baptisms and funerals, had been checked out. I was the current historical touchstone, the recaller of family stories and self-appointed joke teller. Actually, many of those present had heard my store of jokes. Only the very youngest family members had yet to be exposed to my material. Although, I have to say that some of the tweener generations still liked to gather around for a few old groaners…a kinda ‘classics’ review. And I observed some of my nephews and nieces absorbing my pacing and patter for their own story-telling technique.

It took a while to relax and gradually let it sink in that I was now at the end of the runway—next for take off. I have to say, it didn’t hurt that there was a touch of elder-respect coming my way. I learned to graciously accept unasked-for second desserts and offers of more coffee. It was fun to be part of the mix, one of the old dogs snuffling and sniffing in the middle of the pack. But it was a bit daunting to realize that I had probably arrived at my ‘sell by’ date. I decided to enjoy it all while 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/