Have you heard the one about the 100-year life? It’s not a joke. It’s a thing. It used to be a marvel when people lived to be 100. My own mother lived until she was 106. With advances in health care and technology, lots and lots of baby boomers are going to live to 100 and beyond.

Many businesses have been betting that there’s a way to cash in on all the baby boomers headed for retirement. They could sell more hearing aids, anti-wrinkle cream, incontinence products, cosmetic surgery, walk-in bathtubs, etc.

To be sure, there is a so-called longevity economy and it is turning into a huge emerging market. But one of the surefire bets was that boomers would want to move into senior-housing facilities that would cater to boomers, especially as they might require more care. Hasn’t worked out that way however. There’s a surplus of senior housing and boomers are passing for now. We’re staying put because we’re staying fit and value our independence. The latest demographic trend indicates that seniors are not moving to senior housing until they reach 82 years old. The oldest boomers will not turn 80 until the year 2026. Whoops.

Occupancy rates for assisted living facilities are at their lowest level since they started tracking this stat in 2006. The glut may also be attributed to an over estimation of how many seniors can pay anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 per month.

At those prices, it’s no surprise that seniors over age 90 are trying to stay in their own homes and live independently for as long as they can.

Today’s 75-year-olds have the health profile of 65-year-olds. Fifty per cent of people ages 85 or older say they are healthy enough to work. And work is what they do. Have you noticed that it’s no longer unusual to see much older workers on the job? Fast food servers, hotel clerks, maintenance persons, teachers. Gray haired workers are showing up across the occupational spectrum and we hardly notice the difference.

So there you have it…an entire generation is morphing into an Energizer bunny that keeps going and going and going.

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. You can also visit his author page here.

Let us walk and confer together, my son, for I am eager to learn your impressions of the new school.

There is much to tell, Father. Beginning students at Semicircle are not permitted to speak aloud for the first three years. We are instructed to listen carefully but forbidden to make written notes. The Teacher insists that we internalize the lessons rather than routinely memorize content.

The advanced students are able discuss the lessons with Pythagoras, is that not the case?

It is so, but for now we are silenced.

What manner of instruction has transpired?

There are many things and sundry. Today we observed the initiates as they explored relationships between the lengths of sides in a right triangle.

I am but a tiller of the soil, my son. Please elaborate.

A thousand pardons, Father. I have been cautioned that on occasion my excitement with discovery exceeds my reasoning and proper manners. If I may continue, these corners of your fields are formed in a manner that The Teacher classifies as ‘right’ angles, each measuring 90 degrees. A right triangle contains one of these right angles. The longest side of a right triangle is called ‘hypotenuse’ and is always opposite the right angle. The area of a square constructed on that side of the triangle will be equal to the sum of areas constructed on squares of the other two sides.

Yes, I understand that geometry is at the foundation of ownership. It is required that we respect boundaries and the adjacent property of a neighbors’ field.

All our lessons at Semicircle include reference to the extended application of concepts. To verify his teaching The Teacher drew a diagram that placed four congruent right triangles defining with their right angles four corners of a large square. I can replicate it here in the sand.

I can see that the remaining area is a smaller square whose sides are delineated by the length of the hypotenuse.

Exactly, but when I draw a second diagram thus, with the same four triangles grouped in pairs that define two intersecting rectangles, the remaining area is, by contrast, two smaller squares. It follows that the sum of their areas is the same as the area of the remaining single square in the first diagram. Have I demonstrated that to you, Father?

The hour is late, Alex. Tomorrow we will speak more of these things.

Harpeth Rivers is a writer, musician and happy homeowner still living and working in New Mexico. His latest book, Proof, an illustrated fable, is available at Amazon.

It was Monday. I parked my car and was walking toward the entrance to a thrift shop, where I planned to search for cheap things I might turn into art or something like it. Items were displayed on the porch. I got excited, and with my eyes on the prize, I tripped on a parking lot car stopper and went face down.

People were nice. Stuff flew out of my purse, and someone gathered it up. Someone else brought me a chair. A woman with a young child had a wad of tissues for my bleeding chin. I felt OK, but I sat there keeping pressure on the chin. I asked someone for a mirror, and when I saw the gash, I immediately knew I’d need medical treatment.

I drove to a walk-in clinic near my house. I did not know there’s a difference between a walk-in clinic and an urgent care clinic. The physician’s assistant at the walk-in clinic took a quick look and said I needed to go to urgent care.

I used Google Maps to find an urgent care clinic down the street. Oh, and Dale had let his phone die, as he often does, so there was no way to reach him and let him know I’d be late. I finally texted a neighbor and asked her to let Dale know where his wife was.

By this time, I started bleeding again. I thought that might bump me up in line, but it did not. A woman with five children offered to let me go in front of her, and I said, seriously, you must be the kindest person ever, but I’ll just wait my turn and mop up the blood as best I can.

The gash only needed two stitches. It didn’t hurt much at all, and I thought I was golden. Until the next day, I woke up with bruises all over and sore ribs. The ribs actually got worse the next day, but they are getting better. Still, I’m taking it easy. I’m pissed to have endured all that rain and no golf, only to mess myself up as soon as it got nice outside.

At every juncture on this little journey, I would explain I tripped over a parking lot car stopper. And almost every single person had a story about a pedestrian accident involving parking lot care stoppers. I had never given them much thought, but you can bet I will now.

Please be careful out there. We don’t bounce like we used to.

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

 

Not talking golf or sex. It’s almost too easy to miss the forest for the trees, but baby boomers are now part of 4 distinct generations in the workplace. If you are still working, it’s most likely alongside GenXers (1965-1980), GenYers (Millennials-1980-1996) and GenZers (1996-present).

This is a rare circumstance made stranger by the fact that it mixes digital immigrants (that would be us boomers) with digital natives  (that would be millennials and GenZers who have been shaped by technology since birth).

The mixture of work traits is fascinating. Boomers can act as mentors which is something that millennials tend to want (praise and reassurance were hallmarks of helicopter parenting). On the downside, boomers may find it hard to keep up with the technology and there’s those pesky health-wellness issues. Younger workers tend to have greater respect for hierarchy and authority thanks to social media peer pressure (how many Facebook friends one has or how many likes your Instagram post gets has left an indelible impression on them). On the downside however, they can be prone to ghosting (i.e. just disappearing from the workplace rather than giving notice), which is something absolutely foreign to mature workers.

Younger workers exhibit more impatience and shorter attention spans. Technology has inured them to receive instant gratification and the workplace often cannot respond well to that.

For employers, the trick is to meld the 4 generations and tap into each’s strengths and skills. It sounds like it could be a 4-ring circus, but for those employers that get it right, they could have an incredibly productive multi-generational workforce that can best the competition.

You could worry about this and lose sleep over it, but the bigger concern is the wave of robots that’s going to replace old and young alike. By 2030, some 800 million workers worldwide are projected to have been replaced by artificial intelligence and robots. In other words, take the Alfred E. Neuman approach. What me worry?

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. You can also visit his author page here.

“Strawberry — Naturally Flavored with Other Natural Flavors.” (Lifted from a cereal box.1) It’s hard to find a better bit of obfuscation out there, meaning Legal went above and beyond in making Marketing toe the line of provable claims.

Just what does “Naturally Flavored with Other Natural Flavors” actually mean? Does it mean natural strawberry flavor, along with other natural flavors? Does it mean the cereal is naturally flavored with other natural flavors (just not necessarily strawberry)? And why not make it more direct with “naturally flavored with natural flavors”, or even “naturally flavored”?2 Heck, a comma would end the confusion.

The ingredient list revealed not one mention of strawberry, unless it was hiding among the scientific poly-syllabic chemical names at the bottom of the listed contents. Natural flavor shows up- as just that- without further explanation.

Taste-testing revealed that not only are there no dehydrated chunks of strawberry present, the flavor is anything but strawberry-like. Maybe there was an astringent element, but that could have been the age of the soy milk3 used to accompany it.

So what might the flavor actually be? I suppose one could add a tablespoon of dirt and call it a natural flavor, but not for lubricants along the production line. Perhaps they hang a pint of strawberries over the bagging machine and hope occasional molecules of strawberry essence drift to the cereal below. It is truly a mystery. But this doesn’t have to be a single rant; there are three other such “flavors” to try.

1. We live in litigious times so I‘m hesitant to expose the maker or the cereal in question.
2. Honestly, the less ambiguous you make it, the more open you leave yourself to an irate retiree with too much unplanned time on his hands trying to generate interest in a class action.
3. Oops, I may have stumbled into another food borne controversy. If there is no actual milk in soy milk, can it still be called soy milk? See also: almond milk.

Garth Fromme bears no actual malice toward the Quaker Oats Company, but he does get miffed at chicanery no matter its source. He is in his fourth life, still struggling to deal with this unnatural state called “retirement.” www.gnfimages.com

“So, what would you like? Candy, liquid, smoke? What variety? What strength?”

I never thought about any of this in the 60s. I simply took what was handed to me, rolled it in special papers, licked the seam, and lit a match. But now marijuana is legal. At least in Colorado, where my husband and I stopped on a road trip between Utah and Nebraska.

Ah, Colorado! Signing in at the motel, the tourist brochures in the foyer were full of pamphlets for where to buy your grass. It wasn’t something we had planned on, but there were so many pamphlets! So we turned to the clerk, and jokingly asked, “Where is the nearest place to buy marijuana?”

She looked at us and sighed. More marijuana tourists. Another elderly couple out for the adventure of their lifetime. Sure. “When you leave the parking lot, turn right. Drive 100 yards, and look to the left. You’ll see many cars in front of ‘The Emerald Isle.’ Pull in there.”

It sounded too easy, and so mundane. Like telling us where we could get a Coke, or a loaf of bread.

We unpacked and headed for The Emerald Isle. The parking lot must have had 50 cars in it. Certainly not a hole in the wall—a hidden gem, a secret stash for the cognoscenti! It was no speakeasy. It was more like a convenience store.

Around the perimeter were glass sales cases, like in a jewelry store. Circulating between them were at least a dozen salespeople, like in an Apple Store, in matching t-shirts with iPads in hand. We were approached by a handsome young man who consulted with us as if we were connoisseurs and knew what we were doing.

“I haven’t bought grass in 40 years,” I admitted. “I was usually just given it!”

“Things have changed,” he said encouragingly.

For $5 each, we got two pieces of candy that looked like caramels, and we were instructed to eat them after dinner tonight in our hotel room. Unfortunately, that evening my husband didn’t feel well, so we decided to risk taking two little caramels with us out of Colorado. But when we packed up the next day, we forgot all about it. We didn’t remember our candies until the next evening in Nebraska. And we couldn’t find them. Where had we put them? Had we left them in the hotel room in Colorado? Did the housekeeping crew get a bonus tip?

So much for our walk on the wild side.

Bonnie Collins lives in Ocean View, New Jersey where it doesn’t get all that wild.