“Hey, honey,” my wife said as we barreled along M53, “There’s a park up ahead. Sandy Pines. We’ve never been there.”

I had. A year before I met her. 52 years ago. But I didn’t want to tell her that. To get into all that.

“Let’s stop for lunch,” she suggested. “The site says there’s a nice little waterfall near the picnic area.”

There is, I recalled. My girlfriend at the time had my mind in a cloud of cotton candy. But yes, there was…is a waterfall, still, I presume.

So, we pulled in. Lunched. Then walked the acorn strewn path to the railing overlooking the waterfall. I felt strange. Like I was cheating, perhaps because I was not sharing my side of the story, the memories running behind my eyes with each step.

Not everything was the same. There was a kind of dock or station, now, weatherproof boards, worn and warped, not plain gravel and dirt. The railings were shiny from the sunscreen forearms of a thousand visitors, not the bark covered poles from my time. I didn’t realize how much I remembered, how golden that moment had been. How painfully shortened when she dumped me on the way back to town.

So, yeah. The same but different. Changed. New boardwalk around the swampy ground near the falls. Same damp, misty, mucky smell…smells yank you back. More people. Maybe there were a lot of visitors back then. But I guess I just didn’t notice them. And I can’t remember where she lived when I picked her up. And how long we had been dating. But I did remember where I first met her at a friend’s cottage and we played king-of-the-mountain in chest-high water and I could hardly move my neck and shoulders for a week after.

So, okay, a trial run on the way to the real thing. But even at the remove of all these years, is it worth sharing those splashes in the muddle of memories with my wife? Nah. Not so much. Not that she would be jealous, or feel diminished somehow. It would just be irrelevant, too long ago or maybe just too personal. I mean, some memories should stay in the shoe box of photos in the back of the closet right behind the newer one still being filled.

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

2006. Remember where you were or what you were doing? I had to stop and think about where I was living and working. Oh, right. I was the Creative Director at DesignConcept and had this idea that since everyone was blogging about something, it might be a good time to create a blog devoted to being a baby boomer. It had a funny name at first, but then we settled on BoomSpeak because that seemed to fit for a blog that would give boomers a voice and an opportunity to express their thoughts on growing up and aging as boomers. We thought it might make money by selling ads. Ha! Another fantasy crushed!

Thanks to longtime contributor Harpeth Rivers for suggesting that we put out a collection of the best of BoomSpeak. As I note in the subtitle, I think they are all great or I would not have put them in the blog in the first place. Thanks also go to all our faithful readers and contributors for sticking with us for the long haul, and to Jim Fanzone @ DesignConcept for the cover art.

It was surprising to scroll through our online archives and realize how many contributors we have had in sixteen years. We selected what we thought were the best posts and that was not easy — there were so many gems. You have our most sincere gratitude for selflessly allowing us to share your words and thoughts.

We hope you find this BoomSpeak anthology entertaining, and thanks again for coming and going along for the ride.

If you ever contributed a piece that we published, you might find it in this anthology. A sneaky way to get you to buy the paperback or Kindle version?? Yeah, so what? It would be the first time there was any monetary profit to putting out this ezine for 16 years.

Click here to order your edition, and thanks again for being part of the BoomSpeak experience. Much appreciated.

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. Best of BoomSpeak is now available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon.

We’re melting. Well not really melting, more like shrinking. No, shrinking isn’t the right term either. We have muscles, but they are slowly wilting.

Wilting is a better word. But the actual loss of muscle mass is a bit scary. Starting at age 40, 8 per cent of our muscle mass just disappears. If that wasn’t bad enough, the research indicates that we then continue to lose another 8 per cent each decade.

Stay with me now. That means you lose 16 per cent of muscle mass by age 60, 24 per cent by age 70, and 32 per cent by age 80. When I see these numbers, I start to imagine that we’re going to be just skin and bones in our 80s. Come to think of it, that’s what our parents did look like in their 80s.

Are we going to just take this lying down? Because we’re just too weak and lacking enough muscle to stand up? NO!

Okay, maybe. If we do nothing to change the course of this wilting muscle mass phenomenon, we will be limp noodles that can barely pick up a cup of java in the morning (a loss of unparalleled magnitude for many).

Or, and you know what’s coming, we pick up the free weights and start lifting. And the TV remote does not qualify as a free weight. We are talking about those little barbells that come in 4, 6, 8, 10, 12-pound varieties. You lift them up out to the side, over your head, and in any other approved motion. Some people even use water bottles if they don’t want to bother with the free weights. AARP has loads of info on strength training.

The objective is to keep the muscle mass you have, not to end up looking like Popeye. Not that the Popeye look would be so bad, it’s just over the top when you’re 80 years old.

Boomers are getting butt lifts, neck lifts, breast lifts, cheek lifts, hair plugs, and a raft of other procedures that are generally designed to tighten up their bodies. Spending all that money and time on these procedures without addressing diminished muscle mass means they could still end up being a bag of bones.

If you want to lift something for a better body, go out and get some free weights. Tell them Popeye sent you.

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.

According to so many ads on TV, online, and in magazines us older folks require a whole arsenal of walkers and stair climbers and walk-in bathtubs not to mention hearing aids and orthotic insoles. Well, we certainly can use some mechanical support devices. But the adaptations and accommodations we most lean on, don’t come from factories. It’s our friends and family who brace our tracking and recall issues.

Like, for example, when one of us abruptly jumps topics in the middle of a conversation. The other night, a gaggle of us oldsters were bemoaning the high price of groceries when one woman suddenly started talking about her damson plum cake. My first thought was she suffered from an attention deficit disorder or, for a differential diagnosis, general scattiness. But then in a bolt of empathy, I recognized my own recent difficulties hanging onto a slippery thought through the give and take of a lively conversation. It’s so frustrating to have a perfect rejoinder or insight scroll through my attention span like I’m on a subway pulling up to the platform and I have only a moment to shove my thought out before the train disappears into a dark tunnel ‘neath the streets of Boston, never to return.

So, I smiled to let her know that I ‘got’ her plum cake bit. She nodded back, ever so slightly, pleased to be understood. Her train of thought had probably gone something like, ‘Yes, fruit is expensive. Plums are too. Good thing we’ve got that damson tree in our yard. It’s loaded with free, ripe fruit this year and I love the chance to make my special cake with them. Let me jam this into the conversation before it moves on or I forget what I wanted to say.’

We also, I’ve found, accommodate and put up with each other to bridge temporary memory gaps. Like the couple talking about great dining experiences. One guy says, “We really had a great meal last week.”

“Where at?” his buddy asks.

“Hmmm, what was the name of that place?” He pauses. “I’m thinking of a flower that has pickers on the stem and red petals.”

His buddy goes, “A rose. You’re thinking of a rose?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Rose, honey, where was that place we ate at last week?”

We all need some buddies to lean on.

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

 

 

One day I woke up and realized I am no longer a skirt person. Just like that, and now I am at last ready to donate most of my work attire. I have one jacket and one pair of slacks that are keepers, but the rest of it is in the wind.

I’ve been wanting to do something about those lovely pieces hanging in my closet for quite some time now, but I wasn’t ready to let go. I could still visualize myself wearing them, mostly because I was a thoughtful shopper and only bought nice clothes that looked good and fit me well. But also because I associated wearing those outfits with the peak of my career, which was productive and prosperous.

Part of me was still clinging to that image. But as I worked through the emotional baggage I believe is linked to my chronic back pain, I made peace with some rough times I experienced toward the end of my career, and now I think, well, that was a good life, but I’ve moved on.

Now in my fifth year of retirement, let’s just say I’ve laid productivity to rest, although I’m counting on enough prosperity to make it to the finish line. In the meantime, I’d like to look good, but I don’t care about making a fashion statement. Being invisible is fine with me.

Invisible is such a harsh word. I like to think of it as stealth.

All that said, I was still thinking I needed a little help getting dressed, so I spent some time cruising the style quizzes.

That’s time I’ll never get back. When they asked do you like this outfit or that outfit, my answers were always no. I kept wanting to add, I hate it. When they listed celebrity style icons to see which ones I most identified with, the response was none of the above. I was like who in the hell is that person? And jumpsuits? Doesn’t anyone else have to pee all the time?

I feel good about how I present myself to the world and can kick it up a notch if I have to. This is my key point. We don’t need style quizzes. We just need to be confident with our choices. Trust that we know what we like and run with it!

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