Round and Round

She doesn’t have much pick-up but she gets everyone where they need to go. Round and round she goes, from the portico out front of the hotel down to the strip and back. Between the two vans, there’s a shuttle coming through every eight minutes.

You would think that would be enough to satisfy most guests. You never have to wait more than eight minutes to get underway. But people on vacation don’t seem to know how to relax. They board the shuttle van and make nervous chitchat for a few minutes and then get borderline belligerent if we don’t get moving right away. In a hurry to get down to the casino and lose their money, their sense of time, and in some cases, their minds.

“Just waiting for a few more guests before we head out. Want to give everyone a chance to get down to the strip.” What I really wanted to say is “Pipe down, asshole. We’ll get there when we get there.”

But semi-retired geezers can’t afford to be rude to the tourists. In our laughable three hours of training, they stressed to us how the shuttle drivers are just as representative of the hotel as the desk clerk or the concierge. “You’re the face of the hotel as much as any other employee,” were the exact words. If that’s true, the hotel is looking mighty tired.

We don’t earn tips like the airport shuttle drivers often do when they assist passengers with luggage. Just our ten bucks an hour and no real bennies to speak of. The choice of hefting heavy luggage or just doing the driving was easy for me. Why throw your back out for a few dollars in tips. I’ll just be polite and helpful to the guests and take my check.

I do have a reoccurring fantasy while I’m driving. I just keep driving past the strip and none of the passengers say anything. Mile after mile out into the desert I drive until you can no longer see the tall buildings or the bright lights at night. Finally I stop along a stretch of highway that is completely desolate. I open the door. “Okay folks, this is your stop. Remember, the shuttle runs every thirty days, so be sure you come back to this stop when you’re ready to return. Good luck and I hope everyone’s a winner.”

It’s not much, but this fantasy can keep a man happy for hour after hour of going round and round, and that means a lot when you’re semi-retired.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

Giving them the business

Stop and think for a moment how many of your fellow baby boomers own their own businesses. They are designers, bakers, realtors, restauranteurs, farmers, nursery operators, landscapers, pet groomers, childcare operators, vintners, photographers, B&B owners, interior designers, and an almost endless list of various retail store operators.

Now stop and think for a moment about what happens to these businesses when the baby boomer retires. Is there a succession plan? Is there a family member in the wings ready to take over? Is there enough potential to offer the business for sale?

Starting to get the picture? Baby boomers account for about 40 percent of all small businesses. Now factor in the 10,000 boomers who are retiring EVERY DAY. There is about to be a seismic shift in the future of small business in this country.

Millennials and Gen Zers are skewing more to the tech sector when it comes to career choices, so what happens to these boomer businesses, which incidentally are profitable for the most part? We’re talking about 2.3 million businesses that employ around 25 million people. The supply of potential businesses is about to outstrip the demand for ownership.

There’s an unparalleled transfer of wealth happening now, as the boomer generation leaves its wealth in the form of inheritance. But what happens to the actual businesses that built that wealth? Boomers may wish to hand off the business to a family member, but if no one wants it, it either can be sold if there’s a buyer or it withers on the vine.

So what? So there may be fewer professionals, trades people and crafts people to cater to our needs. Fewer plumbers to fix your water heater, fewer unique restaurants that feature unique local entrepreneurs, and overall fewer options other than national chain stores and services. This may be one of those “you won’t know how much you miss us until we’re gone” situations. And there’s nothing on the horizon that would have the potential to change the trajectory of this trend.

The movement to support your local small business is more important than ever in our current economic climate. We just need to realize that many baby boomers will be the last small business owners, because operating a small business has gone out of style. RIP.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

Leggo Your Money

Everyone laughs when the conversation turns to money and someone says, “Well you can’t take it with you.”

Yeah, no kidding. There are no ATM’s in heaven or hell (if you believe in either).

But boomers have been encouraged for years now to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE. According to recent surveys, many boomers are not drawing down their assets. Quite the contrary, they continue to accumulate and grow their wealth.

What’s holding them back? High on the list is the fact that they can live off social security and other incomes sources without touching their savings. Don’t need to tap it so leave it alone. OK, so you don’t want to be extravagant but you “could live it up a little,” eh?

Why else would you hold back? Maybe you want to leave it behind for offspring. So that they can put it in the bank and not spend it either? Mmm? Better to give some of it away NOW to some of the charities and causes that you know can really use it.

Then there is the notion that you need to keep the nest egg for those “unforeseen costs.” Such as getting old and wearing out. That’s right, we’re all going to wind down and check out. You could just as easily therefore make the argument that you ought to enjoy your money while you can.

Probably the biggest worry of all for boomers is that they will run out of money. I get it. We’re living longer. Most of our parents enjoyed 10 or 15 years of retirement leisure and then it was lights out (sorry if that sounds a bit harsh, but that was life expectancy for their generation). We’re exercising and eating well so that we can enjoy 25 or 30 years of retirement. I’m not quite sure what we will do with all those extra years, but damn it, we’re going for it.

I’m not advocating profligacy necessarily but I hate to think we’re going to hold ourselves captive to the other “P” word – parsimony. Pinching pennies down to the finish line isn’t really living. It’s more like barely eking it out.

I’m not sure I really know what it means, but my mother (one of the all-time, unparalleled penny pinchers) once said what I think she meant as advice, “Ladies and gentlemen take my advice. Pull down your pants and slide on the ice.”

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

Fear Transfer

It used to be we were only afraid of Covid. Now, what we fear most is that we have lost these precious retirement years all together. Boomers who were already retired when the pandemic began or those that retired as a direct result of the pandemic, were equally affected. Longtime plans for travel and family activities were put on hold. Initially, it was just one year. Then the one year extended to a second year. And now? No one really knows what the risks are, even if one is vaccinated. Chances of dying are lower? Great! What a relief! Wait a second! That’s the best-case scenario? There’s a fairly good chance we won’t die? Gee, thanks.

Almost everyone is vaccinated (let’s not even talk about why it’s not 100%) and yet we still have trepidation about eating indoors or flying somewhere on an airplane. What have we really lost? Time. Just time. But, it’s time that could have been spent with friends and family. Time to visit new places and try new hobbies and activities. Time for an in-person book club. Time to meet new people. Time to find a new love in your life.

The next thing to fear, thanks very much pandemic, is that we will make ourselves sick or crazy trying to make up for lost time. In our zeal to get back that lost time, we try to redouble our efforts to do everything and go everywhere. Perfect. Then we get sick because we’re so tired from trying to do too much.

It does appear at this moment in time that baby boomers are planning to break the metaphoric shackles that have been trapping us in our homes and hit the road. Fearful or not, we are ready to escape into the wide world. Be warned. Boomers are loose and they mean to have a good time, so woe to anyone who stands in their way.

But we will be as polite about it as we can, you can be sure.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

What? No Toons?

George of the Jungle? The Jetsons? The Roadrunner? Huckleberry Hound? Tom and Jerry?

How can any self-respecting baby boomer forget all the hours we logged in front of the TV (mine was black and white) watching cartoons on Saturday morning?

No one was worried about where we were or what we were up to as long as they could here the TV was still turned on and we were laughing. Unsupervised time to ourselves to indulge our appetite for dogs that could talk and coyotes that could order explosives from the Acme Company. What could be better than that?

But first, we needed to slurp down sugar-filled cereal. Then we planted ourselves in front of the set and didn’t move for hours. Who knows what our parents were doing, but they were most likely relieved to have time to themselves and not worrying about what we were up to.

For me, a few hours of toons was followed by my favorite westerns. Wild Bill Hickok, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, the Cisco Kid, and don’t forget Gabby Hayes.

The good news is that all that TV surfing was followed by outdoor play where we used our imagination (spurred of course by what we had just watched on TV) to invent our own play scenarios. Once again, no one worried about where we were or what we were doing. That is at least until someone went back into the house with a scraped knee or some other minor injury.

Sadly, for the generations that followed us, the Saturday morning fun ended when the networks realized they were not making much revenue from kids programming. They turned instead to sports and news while cartoons moved to after-school slots. G.I. Joe and Thundercats took over and they were really just half-hour advertisements for toys. On top of that, Congress decided to legislate more educational programming for kids. The ride was over,

But now kids can watch cartoons whenever they want via streaming services. And on their phones for crying out loud!! How can you miss the group watching experience if you’ve never experienced the pleasure to be had from that communal fun?

It’s some consolation that baby boomers can feed their nostalgic jonesing by going online where you can find just about every cartoon you ever watched as a kid (search YouTube for Looney Tunes and you’ll see what I mean).

Next thing you know, you’ll be Googling “penny candy.”

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

You Know You're Old When...

 

Don’t know who came up with this list, so I just have to hope it’s in the public domain. It’s definitely in the funny domain.

1. When one door closes and another door opens, you are probably in prison.

2. To me, “drink responsibly” means don’t spill it.

3. Age 60 might be the new 40, but 9:00 pm is the new midnight.

4. It’s the start of a brand new day, and I’m off like a herd of turtles.

5. The older I get, the earlier it gets late.

6. When I say, “The other day,” I could be referring to any time between yesterday and 15 years ago.

7. I remember being able to get up without making sound effects.

8. I had my patience tested. I’m negative.

9. Remember, if you lose a sock in the dryer, it comes back as a Tupperware lid that doesn’t fit any of your containers.

10. If you’re sitting in public and a stranger takes the seat next to you, just stare straight ahead and say, “Did you bring the money?”

11. When you ask me what I am doing today, and I say “nothing,” it does not mean I am free. It means I am doing nothing.

12. I finally got eight hours of sleep. It took me three days, but whatever.

13. I run like the winded.

14. I hate when a couple argues in public, and I missed the beginning and don’t know whose side I’m on.

15. When someone asks what I did over the weekend, I squint and ask, “Why, what did you hear?”

16. When you do squats, are your knees supposed to sound like a goat chewing on an aluminum can stuffed with celery?

17. I don’t mean to interrupt people. I just randomly remember things and get really excited.

18. When I ask for directions, please don’t use words like “east.”

19. Don’t bother walking a mile in my shoes. That would be boring. Spend 30 seconds in my head. That’ll freak you right out.

20. Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life out of nowhere, makes your heart race, and changes you forever. We call those people cops.

21. My luck is like a bald guy who just won a comb.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

Howdy Doody Time!

It would be hard to think of a more universal touchstone for baby boomers than the Howdy Doody Show. Say kids, what time is it? It’s Howdy Doody time!!!

There came a time when just about every local TV station had a kids show (the one I remember was Ranger Andy), but Howdy Doody got there first. And the show didn’t just entertain us boomers — it sold TV sets, cereal, lunch boxes and a lot of other products. Advertisers definitely took notice.

It all started with New York radio NBC affiliate WEAF, where Big Brother Bob Smith was the voice of a ranch hand on a show called The Triple B Ranch. He would greet the audience by saying “Oh, ho, ho, howdy doody.” Just the kind of nonsensical wordplay children love to hear, and love to repeat.

It was a short leap from there to the Howdy Doody Show and a whole cast of characters who lived in Doodyville. That named seemed rather benign when I was 7 or 8 years old, but in retrospect it sounds like a weird place to live. Buffalo Bob talked to the marionettes as if they were real, so even though we could see the strings on the puppets as plain as day, we began to think of them as real people. And what a collection of characters– Phineas T. Bluster with his flying eyebrows on separate strings, along with Flub-a-Dub and Dilly Dally. And the live characters were just as interesting. Chief Thunderthud of Kawabonga fame and Princess Summerfall Winterspring were pretty captivating. Clarabell Hornblow provided some of the slapstick and was played by Bob Keeshan, who most of you should remember later became Captain Kangaroo! He sprayed seltzer on everyone and we all laughed like the chuckleheads that we were.

I had forgotten that the show originally came on in the early evening, but I do remember that it came on just after Gabby Hayes. When the show came to an end in 1960, it was after airing 2,343 programs. It had its educational moments and teaching opportunities, but mostly I remember the slapstick, some goofy songs and the spraying seltzer, along with an unexplainable yearning for Princess Summerfall Winterspring (I began to think of her as pretty hot looking just as I hit puberty).

Who didn’t want to be in the Peanut Gallery bleachers when the Princess was in town? I guess when I was more interested in the Princess than the puppets, my Doodyville days were over, but I still remember them fondly.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.