Big 5-0

5. 0. Fifty. Five. Zero. That can’t be right.

We’ll be hearing that a lot in the coming years. Actually, you may be saying it to yourself already. It’s been 50 years since you graduated (hopefully) from high school. People used to stay married that long. It’s half a century. Five decades. A lotta years.

If they were the best years of your life, then there’s a lot to look back on. If they were the worst years of your life, it’s easy to forget them. Some boomers are finding it easy to dive into this big, steaming bowl of nostalgia. Others would rather stay close to shore, watching from a distance but not diving into the reveries.

It’s easy to remember those high school years as carefree, but that’s only because we were able to ignore the history that was happening all around us. The Cuban missile crisis, school desegregation, assassinations, civil rights marches, urban riots, and the war in Vietnam marked the first half of the 1960s but I suspect most boomers in high school still did not understand just how scary the world could/would be. Our teachers, parents and relatives probably tried to tell us and pass on their wisdom honed from years of experience – but why would we be listening to old people? We knew everything.

Here we are 50 years later, and just as we redefined what it meant to be a baby boom teenager, now we are redefining what it means to be old, or make that older. Who is old? When should we stop working? Why should we stop working? Who are we to tell Mick Jagger, that’s enough? If you stop and think about the fact that we’re living longer and working longer than our parents, the 50 year thing begins to look more like a glass half-full or half-empty proposition.

I think it’s great that boomers are getting all reflective about those high school years, but as we like to remind you on our masthead, your whole life’s in front of you. You can spend some quality time looking back, but I’d rather work on making some quality time in the years ahead.

Oh, and one other thing. We will never look as good as we did in 1965.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

Time Shifters

There was a time when advertising reflected the nostalgia of our demographic and all was well in the kingdom of baby boomers. Maybe you’ve already noticed, but our nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. Someone has pushed up the timeline for what’s considered nostalgic and it’s going to be an adjustment for aging boomers.

You can still hear some soundtracks from our youth, whether it’s the Kinks hawking yogurt (All Day and All of the Night), the Ronettes’ Be My Baby standing up for erectile drugs, or Shake Your Booty (KC and the Sunshine Band) for Fidelity Investments. You gotta like the nerve of Burger King using Walk of Life (Dire Straits) to sell fast food. Or Google using Hall and Oates’ Maneater. Car Wash Blues for Delta Faucets? But for a real leap back in time, Nationwide used Love Is Strange (Mickey and Sylvia).

But if you listen closely, the music used to target a generation has shifted forward to sounds of the late 70s, 80s and 90s. And to another generation other than ours. Auto Trader is using the stars of the Dukes of Hazzard. Budweiser is using What I Like About You. Swiffer used Devo’s Whip It (Whip It Good). Cadillac used Stacey’s Mom (Fountains of Wayne) to sell Escalades….this is the one where the Dads in the school drop-off lane are either ogling the mom or the car, or both. The crazy pistachios ads have used many songs but went straight to new material when they utilized Psy’s Gangman Style. But the prize for tapping the most current music scene for its commercials has to go to Volkswagon. From artists such as The Jesus and Mary Chain (Just Like Honey) and Wave Machine (Keep the Lights On), VW seems to have a knack for finding the newest songs to hook you into their message. And as a bonus, it must be cheaper to use not-yet-famous artists.

It was fun to hear the soundtrack of our youth when we watched a car commercial, but things change, and we might have to get used to being left out of the musical mix. Maybe the occasional adult diaper ad will hit a familiar note (the Beatles – Don’t Let Me Down?).

Looks like what we called nostalgia is soon going to be relegated to just plain old stuff for old people. And where’s the romance in that?

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

The Exercise Guy

Jack LaLanneI have plenty of fond memories of watching TV in the 50s. Most of them have to do with Gabby Hayes, Hopalong Cassidy, Kookla, Fran and Ollie, or the Mickey Mouse Club. But there was also this strange man in a jumpsuit who was urging us to exercise -- Jack LaLanne was his name, and fitness was his game. He called it “trimnastics” and if you watch his first show, it’s so “fifties” you have to marvel that he made it into such a longlasting career.

It all seemed a little nutty and Jack was such a fervent advocate that it felt a bit like walking down the midway at the carnival. Little did we know then that this guy was way ahead of his time. He was preaching diet and exercise long before anyone else and opened the first modern health club, the kind that is now ubiquitous around the world.

When he encouraged older people to lift weights, medical experts said they might break bones, but now we know that weight exercise helps strengthen bones. He was among the first exercise gurus to recommend weight training for women as well.

Perhaps his most lasting contribution was that he gave people hope by reminding them that it was never too late to get in shape. Following his own advice to others, Jack cut out sugar and processed foods and ate only organic and natural foods. But he also reminded us that it was the combination of diet and exercise that would get results.

According to Jack, "There are so many health nuts out there who eat nothing but natural foods but they don't exercise and they look terrible. Then there are other people who exercise like a son-of-a-gun but eat a lot of junk ... Exercise is king. Nutrition is queen. Put them together and you've got a kingdom!"

While stunts such as swimming from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco while towing a 1,000 boat (and handcuffed!!) on his 60th birthday earned Jack a lot of publicity, it was also what made him seem eccentric. He claimed that all he wanted to prove is that his regimen for good health could work at any age.

When asked if he thought he'd live to be 100, he replied that "I don't care how old I live! I just want to be living while I am living! I have friends who are in their 80s, and now they're in wheelchairs or they're getting Alzheimer's. Who wants that? I want to be able to do things. I want to look good...I tell people, I can't afford to die. It would wreck my image."

Jack’s gone but his advice lives on.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.