E  S  S  A  Y   Now that I’m 68, the so-called humorous birthday cards about aging are getting on my nerves. Occasionally, one that is funny does come my way — for instance a Maxine cartoon saying “Reach for the Stars! It keeps your chest from sagging” — but usually the cards’ messages are predictable or insulting.

Some attempt to make jokes about conditions they think are typical of aging: baldness; flatulence; impotence; dentures; knee replacements; incontinence; sagging skin; declining memory; constipation; menopause and even dementia — the list of horrors is endless and the jokes fall flat.

The more cheerful cards try to highlight the advantages of being old: you are aged like fine wine; you no longer have to flatter your boss or dress up for work or get up at a set time. A few cards do say something reasonable such as: “You can now volunteer, mentor, and save the planet from humankind’s follies.” And for those of us who are retired, a few take a positive view of forced leisure: “Now you can be a couch potato without guilt.”

These cards are certainly an improvement over the quips about flatulence, but I wish that the birthday cards were more like congratulations cards that say: “Congrats on graduation, your promotion, your new house”, etc. For those of us over 60, the cards I have in mind could say: “Congratulations on outwitting the grim reaper, keep up the good work!” “Congratulations on retirement and on to new frontiers”, or during an economic downturn, “Congrats on still having an inheritance to pass on to your kids.” And if age has to be mentioned at all, “Keep on trucking and best wishes for the next third of your life!”

Perhaps the cards could comment on interesting things that have come to pass in our lifetimes such as “Aren’t you lucky to have made it to the e-age and many good years of net surfing to you!” Or “Isn’t it great that you lived to see the plug-in car and micro-breweries!” “How fantastic that you lived long enough to have your face on Facebook!” And if you can’t find a decent card, buy a blank one and write your own message.

So what I’ve learned from my card searches is: Come on, Hallmark, get going; hire us Baby Boomers to write for you and we’ll revolutionize that pathetic senior card market!

Judith Amber is a free-lance writer living on California’s Central Coast. She writes on topics including food and wine, the environment, politics, travel, and the arts. She also writes creative non-fiction, humor pieces and poetry.

E  S  S  A  Y    I’m not exactly sure when I knew I was meant to be a writer. It must have been when I was very young. It could have been when I realized words were important because whenever I asked my mother how to spell a word she made me look it up in the dictionary. So words are collected and put in books. Maybe that was the start.

By the time I was in high school, I was typing up short stories that I was sure the New Yorker magazine would be delighted to publish. In college I was bored with the standard curriculum but enthralled to be taking creative writing classes. My mentoring professor told me I had writing talent and I believed her.

Once established in my public relations career, I was writing speeches, congressional testimony, news releases, and articles for publications. I was getting paid to write – I was a professional.

I had enjoyed mystery novels for quite some time but it finally occurred to me that perhaps I could write one. I was living in Annapolis when I got serious about the possibility. The mystery subgenre that interested me most was the accidental detective. A crime is committed and with no experience for detecting, the main character attempts to solve the mystery. It’s even more interesting if it imparts some knowledge about people and places that are outside your own experience. Annapolis and the boating scene on the Chesapeake Bay offered just such an opportunity. And that’s how my mystery novel entitled Head Above Water came to be. I wrote the kind of mystery novel that I liked to read. That was a long time ago.

For years I would not let anyone read it. But then one friend was allowed to see it, and then another, and another and another. All were enthusiastic and encouraging. By then self-publishing had emerged as a real avenue for aspiring writers, so after 13 years, Head Above Water is finally available on Amazon and Kindle. I’m no longer a pre-published author as it used to read in my byline. I should savor the moment but it has freed me up to work on the new mystery featuring an aerial photography pilot in New Mexico. No time to waste because I am not waiting 13 years for this next one to get published.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle.

E  S  S  A  Y  Don’t sweat the small things. That’s what the gurus say.

But sometimes small things – like the carpet-eating moths that have bunked up in my Santa Fe house – cause oceans of sweat.

After moving away from the too expensive and stressful Bay Area; buying, and remodeling this delightful house; meticulously arranging my precious wool rugs from Oaxaca, Turkey, and Iran; and neatly stacking my consignment shop sweaters, I relaxed – until I saw them.

Tiny wheat-colored moths strolling across my favorite wall hangings. I researched: They have bacchanals on wool and silk. One female can lay 150 eggs, which hatch into larvae, which gorge themselves, chewing fist-sized holes in beautiful textiles. Then they pupate, starting their revels over again.

This week I’ve been vacuuming like a woman possessed, inspecting sweaters, scarves, gloves, and socks; taking clothes to the drycleaners, freezing rugs, baking others in the sun, placing sticky traps laced with pheromones to lure the males; and ordering pyrethrin sprays from Amazon to repel the little bastards. I called a rug company in Ithaca, NY, four times – they have moth experts. A fifth time I called just for moral support: What if just one female or one wriggling larva survives all my assaults?

Before breakfast this morning, I was on my knees. Not praying, but looking under my sofa — because that’s where the experts say they lurk. I was thinking: how ridiculous is this? Then I thought of my father.

After being blacklisted by Joseph McCarthy and losing his job, he started a pest control business. It was hard work, crawling around bakeries and other commercial establishments looking for cockroaches and rodent droppings. He was a smart man, and had loved his white-collar job at the Food and Drug Administration. He became an angry man. To his dying day, he said he felt like a man without a country. And though he didn’t say it, I knew he felt demeaned by the dirty work, down on his knees.

I had an epiphany on the living room floor: maybe my moth obsession had something to do with feeling my father’s pain. I remembered him coming home from work, face lined, green coveralls dirt- and poison-soiled. As a little girl, I thought if I was really good, I could make him be happy. I didn’t have that power. And today, no matter how conscientious, I may still miss one damn moth, and there’s not a thing I can do about that. We humans imagine we can control things – from tiny moths to aging and illness — only to find that we control almost nothing.

I’m alive and healthy. I have great friends. I have poetry. And the New Mexico sky is astonishingly beautiful. So I’ll remember what the gurus say. I’ll do my best, and stop sweating the rest.

Joanne Brown is a strategic communications consultant, writer, and poet. Her corporate work can be found at joannebrown.com, and her poetry has been featured in Persimmon Tree and Evening Street Review.

E  S  S  A  Y  For boomers anyway. Manufacturers in the U.S. depend on baby boomer labor and they are doing whatever it takes to keep us on the job. Around 27 percent of manufacturing workers are over the age of 65.

What’s so great about baby boomers in the factory? For starters, they have experience and knowledge that younger works don’t have. They are loyal. And the best part is they need/want to work.

As enticements to stay on the job, manufacturers are offering flexible schedules, reduced work weeks, and job sharing, along with mentoring and consulting opportunities. Even the ergonomics of the shop floor are being retrofitted to reduce the physical wear and tear on older workers who want to avoid knee and back issues.

The scary aspect of this looming labor shortage for manufacturers is that it’s not just happening in factories. Think about where the next generation of plumbers and electricians are coming from. Or auto mechanics. If you think that plumbing, car engines and the household electrical systems can be engineered to be so simple that expert repair personnel is no longer needed, you are dreaming. If anything, some of these systems are going to get even more complicated as the technology behind them gets more sophisticated. That faucet that comes on automatically when the infrared sensor detects motion? It still can leak under the sink or the sensor can go on the fritz. Millennials don’t even know the meaning of “on the fritz” never mind how to replace a worn out faucet washer.

You might be thinking that robots can pick up the slack but I don’t think that’s the solution. Robots can only intuit so much and a simple short caused by worn wires in a light switch may be beyond their capability.

The solution is to keep boomers on the job and start a serious program for knowledge transfer. Not every millennial wants to be a computer programmer or app inventor. It’s time to give tradespersons the status they deserve, along with better compensation. When a plumber can make as much as a doctor, with a lot less stress, the problem may solve itself. Until then, stay on good terms with your trades people and hope that they keep on keeping on.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle.