Attention Shoppers

Shopping these days is certainly becoming a novel experience for baby boomers. We grew up with a whole host of brick and mortar stores, from Sears and J.C. Penney, to E.J. Korvette and Kaufmann’s. Shopping meant putting on decent clothes and getting in the car to go downtown. Ladies supposedly wore white gloves to have lunch in the tea room at Hutzler’s in Baltimore. Urban renewals across the country killed off a lot of downtown shopping but the stores just moved to the shopping centers and malls on the edge of town. New locale, same stores and brands.

Small independent stores used to make up the bulk of the retail landscape. Around sixty per cent in the 1960s with chains accounting for twenty-nine per cent. Now, independents barely account for seven per cent. Mergers of chain stores happened so fast that the change barely registered. But look around now. Sears is in bankruptcy, Macy’s is failing, and many other department stores are struggling to hang on in the face of online shopping.

Now we don’t have to get out of our pajamas to buy whatever we want from Amazon Prime and have it the next day, or soon in an hour via drone. Groceries can be ordered online and delivered to your door. We do our own product research via customer reviews and probably know more than the sales person on the store floor. Sixty-seven per cent of millennials prefer to shop online. Forty-one per cent of baby boomers do as well, while only 28 per cent of seniors prefer that method. Those seniors may not be able to fight the trend much longer.

One type of shopping that has prevailed is catalog sales. Around holiday time our mailboxes are filled with pages plastered with delights. Food, clothes, gear and toys are still be hawked the old fashioned way in a catalog. The ordering, payment and delivery options have all been updated with quick and easy online systems, but the wishful thinking still begins with a paper presentation. It’s amazing that consumers still enjoy shopping that way.

What’s next? Drone delivery has already been mentioned but trips to a live entertainment driven retail venue could also make a comeback. Going to the mall is still a form of entertainment, so perhaps creative retailers can draw us back to a physical marketplace. Some place where you can feel the cashmere, sit on the bicycle, taste the brie or try out the fishing rod. Just maybe.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Hang in There

The workplace is still a gray place as baby boomers hang on to jobs and careers. How long can they hold out? That depends upon their ability to change and adapt.

Over 40% of baby boomers stayed with the same job for more than 20 years. And 18% stayed at least 39 years. And you thought the days of working for the same employer for your entire work life went out with your parents’ generation.

But now everything has changed. There is no loyalty to an employer. Millennials make up 35% of the workforce and they are mobile. Not only do they work from anywhere, they may well work for six or seven employers during their worklife. Five years might be considered a long stint with the same employer. They are less focused on making a product and more focused on being part of a team that solves problems. Bottom line: boomers are not in Kansas any more.

Many companies now consider age a disadvantage and an obstacle to rising talent. Ouch. What happened to the eminence gris thing? We were supposed to be the knowledge base that could be tapped when you needed that whole “experience thing.” Now days, not so much. It would appear that experience has lost its cache and maybe boomers were just kidding themselves when they thought that corporations really needed that understanding of solutions that used to work.

Boomers who are kicked to the curb have only a few choices if they want to keep working. Some are getting the training they lack to be competitive with younger workers, a reboot if you will. Many more boomers are going to work for themselves. About 16% of seniors are now self-employed. Not only they happier, they also say they have more job satisfaction than they did when the worked for “the man” in the corporate world.

As the title of this post says, our only option now is to hang in there. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer noted that “once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.” Of course that could mean we are moving faster toward our own demise, but I’ll take the more positive spin on this one.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

R-O-B-O-T-S

Any day now, if you are still working, there’s a good chance a robot will do your job. Really? – you’re saying to yourself. Artificial intelligence (AI) is coming and there’s not much we can do to stop it (maybe pulling the plug or removing the batteries?).

If your job involves making simple decisions and repetitive tasks, a robot may be doing it in two to three years. They (I’m using pronouns to talk about robots…what does that tell you) will do payroll, review contracts, copy data to storage and handle simple insurance claims. They are already building cars so what did you expect? You just have to hope motor vehicle departments are not staffed by robots. On second thought, robots don’t need coffee breaks and have no incentive to slow down in order to convince supervisors that the job cannot be done any faster. Bring on the bots!

The upside, if you want to look up, is that AI has the potential to greatly enhance the lives of those of us whose work involves a lot of human interaction and judgement. We can continue to interact with other humans while robots reduce the drudgery of repetitive tasks (now we’re back to payroll and basic computer tasks). Imagine how much more productive you could be if you didn’t have update software, organize files, and make breakfast. AI will in fact add new jobs as more people will need to get involved in programming the robots to add more capabilities. Lots of job openings for bot wranglers coming soon.

The other promising factor is that when push comes to shove, humans prefer humans. It’s very unlikely that any of us will want to meet with a robotic therapist, CPA or dentist. Deep down, we crave human interaction even though there are an awful lot of humans who are just plain awful. Most of us would still opt for the human interaction over the robotic one.

So what do you do if your job is threatened by AI? Start thinking about moving into careers that call for skills such as selling, negotiating, strategic thinking, and creative design. And soon. Those bots are persistent. They don’t know how to behave any other way.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Vinci

I ran into Leonardo da Vinci the other day. He was coming out of Home Depot with a shopping cart filled with baling wire, plastic sheeting and what looked like copper flashing.

Leo, come stai? Have not seen you in ages. Are you working on a new painting or building some kind of new flying machine? Last time we met you were still not happy with the smile on that Lisa woman.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Well I know you’ll get it right, you always do. So what’s the latest on the flying machines?

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

You amaze me Leo. You’re always tinkering and experimenting.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Maybe so, but your curiosity is relentless. I don’t know how you do it.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

Hey, don’t go all dark on me. You paint, you invent, you write, you’re into astronomy, botany and cartography. You’re a true Renaissance Man, don’t you think?

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

That’s very true but you seem to be a whirlwind when it comes to inventions and dreaming up new gadgets. I wish I had your inspiration and your diligence.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

And do you do. You never were one to rest on your laurels.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

Hey, are you still hanging with that art patron, Isabella d’Este? She’s a looker, maybe marriage material.

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.

Whoa! It’s not for you, I get it. I just hope you take some time out to enjoy yourself, some me time.

It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

And that is why you’re the genius and I’m just another blogger. Good to see you Leo. Keep it real.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Flight of the Boomers

When people move to a new state it’s typically for a new job. But baby boomers are retiring and they don’t care about jobs (unless they have to work forever, but we’ll come back to that). So where are boomers moving? That’s the question that United Van Lines asks every year, and this year baby boomers are confounding the typical migration pattern.

Southern states and Florida used to be the go to retirement venues, but now the mountain states and the Pacific northwest are bucking the trend. Go West ye boomers! Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming are seeing a 55% uptick to in-bound migration. Fifty-two percent of the movement in the Pacific northwest was in-bound.

So if boomers are not heading for Florida, where are they going? In order, here’s the top ten list of states: Vermont, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, South Carolina, North Carolina, Colorado and Alabama.

And where are they moving from? New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts top the list. It’s interesting to note however, that the largest exodus due to finding jobs elsewhere was the South. The number one reason to move is still for a new job, followed by one in five families who chose to move in 2017 to be closer to family. In third spot was retirement.

And for those looking to retire, the top ten destinations were: Florida, Nevada, South Carolina, Arizona, Maine, Vermont, Wyoming, Delaware, Arkansas, and New Mexico.

More fun facts: The average person moves 5 times in their lifetime. It takes on average 182 days before you unpack the last box from the move.

Now to get back to who is not moving. There is no flight for boomers who find themselves still on the job, not by choice but of necessity. There’s no escape to a warm clime for those who are holding on to the same job in order to try and save enough for a decent retirement. Sorry to end on that sad note, but we need to recognize that many of our fellow boomers won’t be counted in next year’s United Van Lines survey, or the year after that. No flight. More like fight. To survive in retirement on Social Security alone. The big reckoning is coming for them and for all of us who will need to help them age in place with some dignity.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Solo Agers

It’s a thing. And a potential problem. Childless baby boomers who are aging without a spouse or a partner, or who have children more than 500 miles away account for almost 40% of adults over 65. Add the fact that there is a growing shortage of caregivers and you have the perfect storm for a perfect mess.

If solo agers continue to live at home, and most of us will try to do that rather than opt for residential care, we could be facing a variety of problems. It’s not a reassuring picture: medication mismanagement, improper treatment of wounds, isolation and loneliness, poor nutrition, susceptibility to scams are just some of the issues we might potentially face.

Many baby boomers who value their independence or who are not joiners by nature may turn up their noses at residential care. But what if senior living communities went out of their way to attract this population segment?

Experts suggest that they build communities with lots of common spaces and indoor-outdoor areas; lose the pastel look and go modern; create small areas that mimic cul-de-sacs; create units that can be shared by friends/roommates; create spaces for gardening and walking; partner with colleges/universities; provide choices in every arena; and make sure every resident has a health care directive, a will and an estate plan that is updated regularly.

Solo agers need to start thinking about future legal guardianship, to prepare for the day when they are unable to make decisions for themselves. Designating a friend, a relative or a private guardian now is key. The day may come when you’re unable to make that choice.

Boomers are optimists by nature and we’ve got that invulnerability chip on our shoulders. But the reality is we will face the same fates as previous generations…cancer, heart disease, falls, organ failure, dementia/Alzheimer’s, etc. Sorry this is such a downer of a topic, but for solo agers it doesn’t have to be. Making smart choices now and keeping an open mind when it comes to residential living could make living longer into an experience in which we’re living better.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

To-Do List?

I’ve heard that some baby boomers feel like they should be winding down things on their to-do list, and I just want to emphatically state that it’s not going to happen in my world.

What? Winding down because you don’t want to add any new tasks or goals to your life? You want to coast the rest of the way? You don’t need the distractions?

I call bullshit. You do what you want but I think it’s important to keep adding things to the list rather than letting it atrophy. I’ve got places to go, new things to learn, more books to read, people to meet. I want to expand the to-do list not shrink it. If you’re finally at a place where you can do some of the things you always wanted to do, winding down the to-do list is totally counterintuitive.

Make no mistake –– I’m not against occasionally sitting back and contemplating my navel. I’ve earned that privilege. Maybe an end-life of contemplation made sense when life expectancy was a lot lower age than it is today, but if you’re going to live to 100 do you really think it’s rational to loaf all the way there from age 65? That’s a lot of downtime.

I thought baby boomers were going to be different when it came to retirement. Golf and shuffleboard were on the way out and personal improvement and a more hyperactive lifestyle were on the way in. No gold watch after 30 years of service with the same company, and that was okay because our varied worklife was more interesting and rewarding. Once again, boomers were going to make different choices from what our parents did. Slowing down was not going to be the goal of our retirement.

While the idea of just wasting time may sound like a plus if you’ve been a striver all your life, this striver thinks it’s exactly what it sounds like. A waste of time. You could be trying to learn a new language, taking a welding course, fusing glass, or getting better at Scrabble. In fact, it’s time to create a bucket list, not time to shorten your to-do list

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

There’s a disturbing new trend among rich baby boomers. No, not that they are getting even richer. Apparently, according to architects and home builders, wealthy boomers are not downsizing. In fact, they are making their master bedrooms even larger so that they can live in one big room while the rest of the house remains vacant…waiting for the next party or set of house guests.

The kids are out of the house but these boomers just don’t want to part with their furnishings. The solution is to expand the master bedroom and rarely use the rest of the house. Builders of $10 million homes say that the buyers want wet bars, drawing rooms, dressing rooms and oversized bathrooms in their master suites. A 12,000 square-foot home in Aspen has an elevator that goes from the garage straight to the master bedroom that features an office, gym, fridge, sink and coffee maker. So a portable frig is no longer a big deal. Most of the house traffic is from the bedroom to the kitchen and back.

Which begs the question. Why not combine the kitchen and the master and just never leave that one big space. Nightstands could be replaced by beverage dispensers combined with convection ovens. The headboard could be a refrigerator-freezer combo. Groceries can be delivered by Peapod and with the help of Alexa opening the front door, the delivery person can bring everything straight into the master.

If the children and grandchildren show up, they can have the rest of the house, bedrooms and living room to themselves. The boomers can remain in their stand-alone apartment and only come out when the mood strikes.

Brokers are comparing this trend to the European penchant for closing off large parts of the baronial estate. Only the Europeans have to rent out their estates for weddings and tours in order to cover their annual upkeep. Not so wealthy boomers. They can afford to cocoon themselves in extravagant master suites without ever letting the rest of the world in.

When you think about it, even not so wealthy boomers can emulate this trend. Just move into a suite at a luxury hotel and when the kids come, make then rent their own rooms. Done.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

People Persons

Anti-social or just getting more picky? Baby boomers are less socially engaged than people the same age 20 years ago according to a Stanford Center on Longevity study. How do you define social engagement you might be asking? The Center defined it as something measured by involvement with family, friends, neighbors, spouses, as well as work, volunteer or community activities.

Are we deliberately pulling back on social commitments or is it due to lack of time or other pressures. Baby boomers are the sandwich generation after all, and they may be caring for elderly parents while their children may still live under their roof. The need to continue working for financial considerations is also a factor. Boomers have also moved frequently during their careers and that has limited longer-term interpersonal relations.

I recently had a discussion where a group of baby boomers agreed that while face to face socialization and bonding over common interests might be desirable, the same connection via the internet might be more satisfying and even more efficient. A hypothetical group of stamp collectors might dislike each other’s politics if they met in person, but the internet interaction helps to keep the focus on stamps. So even polarization has been a factor in discouraging more face to face interactions.

Texting and email have definitely made it easier to stay in touch with “your people.” Is that a bad thing? I don’t believe it is, but some of the Stanford researchers are concerned about what’s lost when boomers back away from meaningful engagement. Keeping to ourselves may not be good for our communities that need volunteers, mentors and civic minded participants.

I don’t foresee boomers becoming so isolated that their communities suffer as a good percentage of them will continue to be socially engaged. We may be trying to find that happy medium where we maintain quality real time people interactions along with social media interactions. Bottom line, it’s too soon to label boomers and people who don’t need people. In fact, we need people more than ever but we’re redefining how we maintain those relationships.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

1968

I saw a promotion recently for a Netflix documentary about Bobby Kennedy. A black screen featured the overlay of large red numerals for 1968 and it struck me that I had forgotten what a tumultuous year that was. We think we are living in crazy times now, but in 1968 many baby boomers felt a loss of innocence that probably has stuck with us to this day.

The year began with the realization that the war in Vietnam was lost. Walter Cronkite of CBS news said so and we trusted him. Peace with honor was a bullshit way of saying stick a fork in it and the loss of life for this lost cause still boggles the mind, as does the after the fact realization that the war was prolonged for purely political gain.

Eugene McCarthy won the New Hampshire Democratic primary in March and LBJ announced his withdrawal from the race. Everyone was shocked.

More shocking still was the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April. The riots that followed underscored the simmering resentment and frustration that African Americans felt when it came to their civil rights in a country that prided itself on believing that all men are created equal.

Just a few months later, after Bobby Kennedy had won California’s Democratic primary, he was assassinated in Los Angeles. Young baby boomers who were drawn to the charismatic politician were devastated. He represented the hope that we could be a better more compassionate nation and it felt like someone had cruelly doused the flame. His final public words have some powerful resonance still, especially at this moment in our nation’s history: “What I think is quite clear is that we can work together… And that what has been going on with the United States over the period of the last three years, the divisions, the violence, the disenchantment with our society, the divisions — whether it’s between blacks and whites, between the poor and the more affluent, or between age groups, or in the war in Vietnam — that we can work together. We are a great country, an unselfish country and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running.”

And lest you forget, this was all happening 50 years ago. Maybe the innocence is long gone, but I would like to think that the optimism and compassion are still there for millions of boomers.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

If I Had a Hammer

I’d hammer in the evening, all over this land.

News flash: Millennials are more apt to end up in the ER from a DIY home improvement project. More than whom? More than baby boomers, of course.

According to a study done by SoFi (a finance company I’ve never heard of before), millennials are 23% more likely than boomers to end up in the ER due to a home improvement mishap. And two times more likely to require stitches. And twice as likely to be injured by power tools. You can find the full study here.

Here’s the kicker. The reason millennials suffer more injuries is down to overzealousness…they are just too eager to show off their latest project on social media. So really it’s all Facebook’s fault.

Boomers are 22% more likely to finish their DIY projects, but millennials are 65% more likely to finish ahead of schedule (and that may include time spent in the ER). It’s also telling that millennials are more than four times more likely to hire a professional for their next home improvement project.

Not surprisingly, millennials are twice as likely to post photos of their project on social media just to “show off.” Doing it for the ‘gram (that’s short for Instagram if you’ve been living under a rock) comes naturally to this cohort.

What happened to improving something in your home just for the comfort and satisfaction of a job well done? You might as well ask why we no longer have rotary phone dials.

I’m not making social media out to be the monster in the closet. It’s the go to destination for figuring out how to do literally thousands of DIY tasks. From replacing solenoids and brake shoes, to repairing toaster ovens and drying out smart phones that fell in the toilet, the internet (and specifically Youtube) has significantly boosted the success rate of DIY projects. Long gone are the days when you had to go to the library for a how-to book or struggled to figure the problem out on your own. Now there are thousands of “experts” posting DIY videos that take you step by step through the project and that has given many of us the confidence to tackle some tricky tasks.

Therein may be the difference between boomers and millennials. We use it as a tool, they use it as a megaphone. Vive la difference and stay out of the ER.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Pig In A Python

How did it come to this? The term “baby boomer” is considered by some, if not many, to be a toxic phrase. Are we really synonymous with greed and selfishness? When did our cohort go from being groundbreakers to saboteurs? Anthropologist Helen Fisher describes the postwar baby boom, or bulge if you will, as “like a pig moving through a python.”

Yikes! That does not sound good, nor does it reflect well on us as a generation. For a long time being a boomer felt like it was a badge of honor. We were part of this unprecedentedly large generation that made its mark on culture, from music and entertainment to literature and language. We were a potent force in changing the way our society looked at war, sex and civil rights. It almost makes you want to hum Let the Sunshine In from the musical Hair.

Then somewhere around the time of the last economic downturn there began to emerge a chorus of naysayers who pointed the finger at boomers. “Look what you’ve done! You really have effed things up royally!” Really? They want to blame an entire generation for the failures of our governments and our leaders. I guess the flipside of taking credit for much of the cultural innovation of our era is that we also get saddled with the blame. It makes you want to go down the road of revisionist history. Were the generations that preceded us really that exemplary or did they have some serious faults as well. Our parents were part of the so called “greatest generation” because they met and beat back the bad guys in World War II. Should they get all the credit for the postwar boom that lit the fuse for an age of American prosperity? They also gave us the cold war, McCarthyism and a horrible record on civil rights.

The bad rap on baby boomers is just as much a generalization as the rap on millennials. They are not all selfie-taking, soft-in-the-middle, whiners still living with their parents. Like generations before them, they are a product of their place in time. In their case, that’s a post-9/11 America that seems to be at war all the time and ignoring climate change.

Let’s hope that the generations can move beyond the stereotyping, because one way or another we are going to be very dependent upon each other and it will benefit us all to give up this senseless blame game.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Childhood 2.0

The writer Morgan Jerkins recently posed this question via Twitter: What was a part of your childhood that you now recognize was a privilege to have or experience? Essentially, what experiences are today’s kids never going to know.

You could answer the question with things such as 8-track tapes, rotary dial telephones, VHS tapes and dial-up modems, but most respondents were more nostalgic for experiences rather than things. And the experiences fell into four broad categories: taking risks, family time, reading books and a screen-free existence.

For risks, people cited being able to ride a bike all over the neighborhood and playing outside all day. I know that I left the house on Saturday morning and played with friends until it was time for dinner. We were free range kids and there was no inkling that play dates were in the future. Helicopter parenting has definitely changed child rearing and the lack of independence is most likely the source of considerable anxiety for today’s youth.

When it comes to family time, respondents talked about grandparents that were close or living under the same roof. You heard the family stories and lore directly from the source and mom and dad were not so harried with work that they did not have time to interact with us. The stress of the modern world and the likelihood that relatives are far away has greatly reduced time kids get with family.

Reading was a mainstay activity growing up. It started with Dick and Jane and then moved on to the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, but the point is that we were readers. We could find entertainment in a world of books with stories that peaked our imagination. Now, 27% of 17-year-olds say they never or hardly ever read for pleasure.

Which segues perfectly with the reason they are not reading books. We had a screen-free childhood. No social media pressures, no smart phones, no tablets. We did watch TV but we also played Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, and a whole bunch of goofy spelling games (Perquackey anyone?). Compared with today’s penchant for being online all the time, we spent much more time creating our own entertainment and it did not involve any electronic devices (unless your want to count a Texas Instrument calculator that we thought was some amazing invention, right up there with the transistor radio!).

The point of this exercise is not to denigrate the way kids are growing up now. Every generation must feel nostalgia for the way they grew up and today’s kids may wax poetic about their childhood in another 30 years (when people are flying around in personal autonomous airplanes operated by Amazon). So it goes.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Everything Is Something

Have you noticed a strange red mark on the top of your foot? Do you think you’re seeing floaters on your eyeball more often? Do you feel lower back pain only hours after getting up in the morning, and you haven’t done anything physical? Does one of your back molars hurt when you chew on that side? Your knee joints ache? Your neck hurts? Numbness in your shoulder?

Congratulations! You’re aging. The thing is, mentally I’ve begun to think that everything is something. And worse, that the something is going to kill me. Experts like to say that one of the challenges of growing older is knowing which pains we need to pay attention to and which ones we can ignore.

I’m going with the contrarian tack. I’m thinking that any one of these pains is going to kill me and as a result I feel more sanguine about the whole aging mess. It feels a little bit the zebra trying to outrun the lion and after exhausting itself it just gives up and goes down. Well, maybe that’s not the best metaphor. I don’t expect to be torn apart by a predator cat, but I know I’m going down some day and it’s totally impossible to predict which pain or bizarre symptom is going to mark the beginning of the end.

I’m not going to blithely ignore serious ailments. Even zebras would go to the doctor for routine ailments if there was a veterinarian around out on the savanna. It would be foolhardy to ignore some of the more obvious signs of cancers or dementia and I’m certainly not advocating willful ignorance. The reality for all of us is that something that starts out small is going to be the thing and there’s not much we can do to alter that. We can be watchful, exercise, eat as well as we can and live life to the fullest. And isn’t getting the most joy out of life while you can the best revenge? I know…tell that to the zebra.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Perpetual Buffet

What some might call the ideal retirement others can only imagine the horrors of a perpetual buffet line.

A startup company in New York, Storylines, is selling cabins on a 584-foot luxury cruise ship to retirees who want to ply the oceans. There are only 302 cabins so you’ll have to act fast. Not.

For someone like me who considers being trapped on a cruise ship to be a complete and total nightmare, this all seems like a terrible idea. But I have no doubt it will be a success.

Cruise ship condominium owners may rent out their cabins much like the Airbnb model in order to defray monthly fees that range from $4,770 to $9,600. Yes, you read that right. The condo cabins start at $225,000 for purchase and the monthly fees are on top of that initial purchase price. One can only imagine that it’s the cost of 24 hour buffet service that’s pushing the monthly fees into stratospheric levels. Storylines officials say that the fees cover alcohol, housekeeping and other amenities.

Hopefully the “other amenities” include a ship’s doctor and medical staff. Somehow I can’t get the mental picture of a floating germ factory out of my head. It seems like at least once or twice a year there’s a cruise ship health disaster in the news. You know, the ones where the ship has to return to port after some sort of virus infects more than half the passengers who can only projectile vomit over the railing until the ship docks. Well who wouldn’t want to pay nine grand a month for a shot at that scenario.

Baby boomers have a multitude of options for how to occupy themselves in retirement and while cruising is very popular (27 million international passengers are projected for 2018), not everyone has the stomach for it. Literally.

Oh, and one more thing. Your ownership is actually a lease that is tied to the “seaworthy life of the vessel.” If the ship runs aground, so does your investment. No amount of life jackets will save you from drowning in debt if that happens. On the bright side, maybe the buffet will continue service.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Turns In the Road

Maybe it’s a function of feeling like you’ve reached the three quarter mark, the back nine, the fall season, mid-life plus, whatever….but have you found yourself second guessing some of the turns you made at critical junctures in your life?

It might be just a few “what-ifs” or an entire catalog of them, but I sense that many baby boomers could be wondering how their lives might have turned out had they taken a different path. How would life be different if you majored in accounting instead of physical education? Where would you be now if you married Alice instead of Denise? Clown school may have been the worst idea you ever came up with. Sorry that you only had one child or sorry you had any children at all. Was the third marriage your biggest mistake?

Most of us can identify some crossroad where a choice was made that changed the course of our lives forever. Choice of a mate would certainly top the list but a first job or career choice would be right up there in the critical crossroad category. So let’s say you didn’t marry Alice and instead followed Denise to Oregon to join that commune. That would most likely mean you never went to medical school but instead ended up selling farm equipment in Iowa.

The geography choices alone can be critical determinants in the turns your life takes. Settling in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey seemed like a good idea in the halcyon days of 1970…not so much now. Las Vegas turned out to be a bad locale for someone who realized he was a compulsive gambler.

At some point we just have to come to terms with the choices we’ve made and by that I don’t mean we settle. Life turned out the way life turned out and while it may be interesting to ruminate about how it could have been different, you’re better off just marveling that you made it to this point at all.

Besides, you still have crossroads and choices ahead and if you don’t pay attention you could miss your turn all together.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

#hertoo

I bumped into Eleanor Roosevelt the other day outside the Apple store. It looked like she was carrying the new iPad. No surprise there – the lady has a knack for connecting with people and texts and emails are great tools for that.

Elly, how goes it? What’s your take on #metoo and #timesup?

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.

Amen to that sister. But do you think women can sustain the movement?

A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

But the personal attacks that some women have experienced…

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

You certainly demonstrated that a first lady could have great influence.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

Sure, I can see that but you risked a lot when you spoke out about injustice, civil rights and the plight of the poor.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Does it pain you to see what the political climate is now in America?

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

A lot of people are discouraged by our present polarization and want to opt out or disengage.

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

How do you stay so upbeat? Everyone wants to be happy but we don’t know how to get there.

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.

It seems like everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame now, to go viral on the internet, to be recognized for something, anything. Do you see the downside to it all?

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.

Funny. I’ve got to run but what’s the biggest lesson you learned from your experience?

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Spare Bedroom Match-ups

Who knew? Millennials are enduring a housing crisis and baby boomers may hold the key…literally. As in the house key.

High rents and home prices are locking millennials out of affordable housing options. At the same time, boomers are sitting in houses with a lot of empty bedrooms. Real estate site Trulia is calling this a match made in housing market heaven. And they are calling these potential matches boom-mates.

By extrapolating from census data, Trulia estimates that there are around 3.6 million vacant bedrooms in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Boomers want to remain in their homes and millennial renters are desperate for cheap rents.

If this sounds to you like the perfect scenario for a sit-com, I’m way ahead of you. The first pitch that comes to mind is a remake of Three’s Company. But instead of two girls and guy, the cast is made up of two boomers and a girl. The husband and wife boomers spend all their time reminiscing about Woodstock and looking up slang in the Urban Dictionary while the millennial is always walking around with earbuds and looking for the next big app.

If that doesn’t work for you, there’s Happy Days. Howard and Marion Cunningham, you may recall, did rent an upstairs room to The Fonz, so we’re not talking about a big leap here. In this remake, their millennial boarders do not have names like Fonzie or Chachi but the show would feature their struggle for respect in a world that constantly tries to diminish their ethos.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? Street smart millennial from Philly moves in with wealthy boomers in LA where his sense of entitlement is a constant source of friction with the self-made couple. He doesn’t get their taste in music and they don’t get his music or really anything about him.

If taking in cash-strapped strangers sounds far fetched, let’s remember that it was not that long ago that a third to one half of 19th century urban residents in this country either took in boarders or were boarders themselves.

So is boom-mates really a thing? Is it really happening? Not so much. But it’s a safe bet that one of the sitcoms mentioned above is coming back to a TV in the common room where millennials and boomers can gather and share some laughs.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

The Plot Thickens

Everyone knows by now that retirement and old age are going to be defined differently by the baby boomer generation, and that’s okay. We were different from the start so it makes sense that we’re going to be different when it comes to the end of life experience.

But here’s one curve you may not have seen coming. Cemeteries are running out of plots and the ones they do have are costing an arm and a leg…along with a head and a torso. Land shortages for urban cemeteries are the norm now and they refer to it as a “space crunch.” Finding 50 acres of land to build a new cemetery when you’re up against the NIMBY effect (not in my back yard) has contributed to the maxed out capacity crisis.

A single burial plot in an urban cemetery can run anywhere from 6 to 8 thousand dollars. That’s a big reason why many more people are opting for cremation. While boomers may find that they can just squeeze in (sorry for that mental picture), millennials are out of luck once again. They will blame boomers for that too, but we’ll be dead so there’s that.

Green or natural burials are growing in popularity as a direct consequence of the space shortage. The body is buried without embalming or a coffin, allowing it to decompose naturally, so the land ends up being a conservation ground. Sounds oddly efficient but it still requires enough space to accommodate millions of boomers. Plus there’s the whole humans as fertilizer aspect to it that can be a downer (the death itself being the ultimate downer).

Do you think many of the 78 million or so boomers have given much thought to this looming crisis? I think not. Sure, many have secured a plot or prescribed cremation in their wills, but I’m betting that the vast majority are not worrying about it. We’re a fairly optimistic bunch not often known for advance planning. So it looks like many boomers are going to be sticker shocked or scrambling to come up with alternate disposal plans for themselves and their loved ones. You might consider a Grateful Dead song at the funeral. And We Bid You Goodnight would work but consider planning now for that end.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Early Bird Extinct

Years ago I swore I would never be caught going to an early bird dinner. The whole idea of going to eat early to save a buck just nauseated me, as in made me lose my appetite. Now I guess I don’t have to worry, because it would appear that the Early Bird Special is going extinct.

Go to the heart of the retiree republic in South Florida and you’ll see that restaurants are near empty around 4 pm. Early bird specials are for old people. Boomers don’t want to be thought of as “old” so it’s goodbye early bird special.

Back in 2009 it looked like the early bird dinner was making a comeback but it was just a brief flicker of a revival. Restaurants were doing anything to fill seats in non-peak times and the early bird special targeted anyone pinching pennies, not just the grey heads.

Restaurant owners can see that baby boomers are not taking the bait (sorry, the whole worm thing can do that to you), but they have not given up on the concept. New euphemisms have sprung up for it however. Sunset dinner and twilight dinner are now more common terms for dinner at 4-5 pm. The name change has not lured boomers back to the table. Millennials who are scraping by as contract employees without benefits are the more likely customers for bargain meals these days.

The chain restaurants have found another way to get boomers into the seats – namely discounts. There are all sorts of deals for 2-person dining as well as reduced portion specials. Applebee’s gives the 60+ crowd 10-15% off, Carrabba’s gives 10% off to AARP members, so does Chart House, Dairy Queen, Subway and Friendly’s. Dunkin’ Donuts will give AARP members a free donut with the purchase of a large beverage.

The extinction of the early bird special is just one more sign that baby boomer retirement is nothing like mom and dad’s version of the golden years. Boomers don’t want to identify as “retired” so the last thing they want is people gawking at them eating dinner at 4pm. They are out windsurfing or roller-blading and they will eat at a civilized 6:30 pm, thank you very much. Of course, they may still be in bed by 8:30 so at least that sign of being a senior hasn’t changed.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

Mar, Sam, Whatever Your Name Is

I bumped into Mark Twain the other day as he was coming out of Brooks Brothers. The white suit was so bright that I was temporarily blinded.

“Mark, I mean Sam? Is that you?”

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

“It’s funny that you say that because some people just keep harping on this whole fake news thing.”

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

“Exactly, and there’s a whole lot of distortion going on these days. What some would call outright lies.”

The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might.

“Well there’s a lot of that going around these days, especially among people elected to hold high office.”

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

“Amen to that. Are you working on any new books? You still have a lot of fans/”

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. Fortunately everybody drinks water.

“And everybody likes a good Mark Twain yarn.”

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

“That’s witty. I wish I thought of that one.”

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.

“True, but you seem to have a knack for the bon mots. How do you remember them?”

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.

“That’s one of the drawbacks of getting older I guess.”

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

“Say again?”

The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.

“I don’t know what to say.”

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

“This may be a foolish question then, but do you believe in the afterlife?”

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

“I’ll drink to that, but I need to be going.”

All right, then, I’ll go to hell.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.

You're Gettin Sleepy...

Boomers are not sleeping like we used to and people who study this kind of thing can prove it. No less an authority on health than the National Institutes of Health is telling us that older adults typically have more trouble falling asleep.

No kidding. In their study of adults over 65, 13 percent of men and 36 percent of women take more than 30 minutes to fall asleep. On top of that, we sleep less deeply and wake up more frequently during the night. This change in our sleep patterns is mostly due to a lowered secretion of melatonin, the hormone that promotes sleep.

How about the fact that we have a lot on our minds? Yes. Experts agree that boomers have cares that are both upstream and downstream. They worry about their children and grandchildren as well as their elderly parents. Then there are the financial issues. Did we save enough for retirement? Will we be living in a van?

So this is not the new normal. If we’re not sleeping well, we need to do something about it. The mattress companies would have you believe that the solution is a new mattress and foundation (that’s what they’re calling boxsprings these days). And that could help, but experts think that getting more exercise is effective along with meditation and getting outdoors more often. So start doing something more aerobic such as brisk walking or swimming and get out and commune with nature before you run down to the mattress store where you will be tortured to find 107 kinds of mattress choices that totally baffle you. Consistency when it comes to your bedtime schedule is also supposed to help according to insomnia experts. Your bed should be in cool, dark and quiet space and it helps even more if you can create some kind of ritual that puts your mind in a restful state. To which I say, easier said than done when it comes to achieving a restful state of mind these days, but worth the effort to try.

If none of these suggestions help, it may be time to talk to your doctor or head to the sleep clinic to see if there’s a medical issue that’s affecting your sleep. There are effective treatments out there and seeking them out is a lot healthier than ignoring the problem.

So if you’re experiencing a lack of sleep that should be a wake-up call. I bet the experts never use that one.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, Head Above Water which can be purchased on Amazon here. You can also visit his author page here.