Thoughts at Large

It’s that late winter time again when I have too much on my mind to distill into one column, so here are some totally unrelated thoughts at large:

•I thought the only good deal at the movies these days was the purchase of a child’s meal for $5.50. Turns out that with the AARP card there are better ones. Just ask the person scooping the popcorn. Oh, and do get the Regal club card. It’s no cost and you can earn free movie passes and goodies.

•Speaking of movies, tonight is my Superbowl – the Oscars! I’m rooting big time for Matthew McConaughey for best actor and Jared Leto for supporting actor from Dallas Buyers Club. It was a great movie, but my favorite this year was Blue Jasmine. Oh, and I’m also rooting for Cate Blanchett for best actress. These three were roles of a lifetime.

•I think many women boomers were/are Sex and the City fans. Most women I hang out with know most every episode by heart. So, I ask you, how can Sarah Jessica Parker roll out her new shoe line showing nothing but 4-5 inch heels? I don’t want to take my life in my hands in a pair of those do you?

•It feels as though I woke up one morning and all the newswomen (both local and national) looked like high fashion models and were dressed like cocktail waitresses. Somehow I can’t take a newscaster with dangling earrings seriously.

•Speaking of the news, a couple of years back the cameras at press conferences began making constant clacking noises – almost drowning out the speaker. Hard to imagine that our technology can’t come up with something quieter.

•Major events that I was glued to recently were the Beatles 50 year anniversary show and of course the Olympics. In retrospect, the segments I will remember and liked the best were the personal background vignettes. Loved seeing the Beatles when they were The Quarrymen in Liverpool.

•Have you, like me, been counting your blessings that you live in the only state that has no snow accumulation? Seeing those car pileups on slippery roads, causes me to complain less about our seasonal traffic jams.

•As a lifelong consumer of Triscuits, I bemoan how small the boxes keep getting. Do they think they’re fooling us? Oh, and now there are 10 or 12 flavors. Who needs this? Just give me the original family sized box.

•I just finished  the book “I’m Over All That” by Shirley MacLaine. She cites a phenomenon that she says is happening called ‘time shifting’ in which we are fooled by the sequence of time. This is very encouraging, because she claims that this is why we set out to do a task and then realize we’ve already done it. According to her, this is happening to people of all ages. Do you feel as redeemed as I do?

•Billy Fucillo our local Kia dealer is finally pronouncing our state name correctly in most (not all) of his commercials. Okay, so Billy’s not from here, but how do we forgive the Fox News voice over talent for constantly saying Southwest FlArida?

•Why can't our city get the big clock at the Cape Coral Parkway entrance to have the correct time? Nice greeting to potential residents.

•I have found one gas station that has pumps that don't require me to stand there and hold it for 18 gallons. Why don't most stations have these slots on the handles that keep the fuel flowing? Many of us boomers have a touch of soreness in our hands don't we?

•And finally, if only I could comprehend why my cat loves his wet food one day, and ignores it the next. The waste could feed all the feral cats in Lee County.

If you can’t identify with any of these, and have your own. Please share them with me via e-mail. I’ll publish the good ones.

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Non Senior Living

It’s been a tough journey, but my friend Linnea has finally arrived at the difficult juncture of life before memory loss, and today’s reality. She’s a people person, well educated and widely traveled, but finds herself in a very lonely place. That place is her beautiful sprawling home in single-family suburbia where she knows no one except the people she greets as she walks her dog.

Linnea bought her home in the beautiful corner of Florida visualizing a more active life than she could enjoy in her upstate New York wintery climate. Shortly after moving here, she realized that something was not quite right. She would lose her way to places she thought she knew well. Although she’s only 65, she has been diagnosed with early dementia, and realizes that she has to make some hard choices.

This column is not about memory loss or dementia, it’s about the way that we baby boomers of all descriptions want to live out our lives.

After visiting many upscale senior living enclaves, Linnea was more than discouraged. She wants to have friends and neighbors of all ages. The places she visited were of course age restricted and felt very one dimensional to her. She’s physically healthy and active and wants to be near others who are.

In a conversation just last week, she said, “Someone needs to develop a community that is designed for us boomers.” I agreed, and totally understood that at 65, she just wasn’t ready for the mantle that “senior living” holds in our culture.

As if reading our minds, an article reprinted from the Arizona Republic addressed this very issue as I read my newspaper today. Scottsdale based DMB Associates is opening an age-restricted community within a greater community. Called Victory, and scheduled to open mid year, it will meet many of the needs that the developer has discovered that baby boomers are looking for.

Just as my friend Linnea expressed, DMB realized that his potential buyers didn’t want to live with people just their age who look just like them. They prefer work out spaces, hiking trails and communal opportunities over golfing. I found it interesting that this development offers 6 holes of golf for people who don’t want to invest 4 or 5 hours on an 18 hole round. This leaves more of the day to do other interesting things like knowing their neighbors.

The great places I’m reading about in other parts of the country are in Arizona or the Northeast. They sound so inviting. Some of the features include: wider doors and hallways; better lighting and bigger windows; first-floor bedrooms and bathrooms; easy to maintain exteriors and landscaping; technology structured wiring; home office space, and vetted service providers recommended by concierge services.

What I can’t figure out is why Florida isn’t on this bandwagon. We have traditionally been the retirement destination for the past two generations, and yet we are lagging behind. I want to stay here, and I would like to find a place with all these amenities. Equally important is the opportunity to be a part of a community. We boomers like interdependence. We don’t want isolation. Most of us went to college and had roommates and later housemates, and we learned to like that lifestyle. As I look back on my 20’s and early 30’s, the housemates I had became some of the best friends I ever had.

So, where do my friends and those of you who can identify go from here? We start asking for what we want in housing just as we’ve always done. Let’s not forget that as more of us get older, we are closer to reaching that critical mass that will allow us to demand what we want.

By the way:

•Four million 50+ women live in US households with at least two other women of similar age.

•There are now “aging in place specialists” so designated through the National Association of Home Builders.

•One third of we boomers will face old age as a single person.

•One in four of us is childless.

Elvis and the Beatles

My brother Bill remembers the first time he heard an Elvis song. He was 16 and had just walked into the Rendevous restaurant with his girlfriend Carole when he heard Heartbreak Hotel. He recalls their looking at each other in amazement and running to the juke box to find out who this was.

Now retired, both of them have fond memories of Elvis’s presence throughout their lives, and so do I.

When Bill was stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky as a paratrooper with the 101^st, when he and Carole (now his new wife) drove to Memphis on his first long leave. They joined others at the musical note embellished gate of Graceland, much like pilgrims at Mecca. To their utter astonishment, after just a short time taking pictures at the gate, it opened, and Elvis drove out in a Cadillac waving to everyone as he passed.

When the letter detailing this adventure arrived at our house, complete with pictures, it was a big, big moment for his little 8-year-old sister. Some of my earliest childhood memories have Elvis in the background being played on the 45’s that Bill cherished. I don’t remember if my parents had any objections to this. Bill could pretty much do what he wanted. None of us realized that he was in that generation that first gave teenagers their own music.

That’s right boomers, most of us were pretty small when rock and roll entered the culture. But if our parents were hip and we had older siblings, chances are that rock and roll is the soundtrack of our earliest memories.

I’ve been thinking about all of this because of the 50^th anniversary of the Beatles arrival in the USA. I’ve been watching the promos on television for the big show which will feature Paul and Ringo together. My friend Laura and I are planning our evening of watching it much as some plan the Super Bowl.

We boomers can claim the Beatles as our own. We have bought their records and followed all their escapades for 50 years now. Do you remember when you heard your first Beatles song? I sure do. I was riding in the car with my dad, and I was 13. The radio announcer was singing the praises of this British group which had 3 hit records on the charts. The first song I remember was I Saw Her Standing There. From there it’s a little blurry with I Want To Hold Your Hand, Love Me Do, and All My Lovin’.

What does stand out in my memory and my friend Laura’s was how much our dads hated the Beatles. Laura remembers crying her eyes out when her dad tore down all the pictures and posters she had on her bedroom walls. I remember my dad going into tirades when he would find me glued to my turquoise clock radio swooning over Beatles songs.

Wasn’t it amazing how threatened the establishment was by the Beatles? I look at that early photo of them in their neat grey suits – George with his unibrow and Paul with his cigarette, and they look so cute and clean cut now. Parents everywhere were crazed by their long hair, and the screaming that their performances evoked.

I’ll bet you remember where you were when you watched them on TV for the first time on Ed Sullivan. Fortunately, my dad was at work that night and so I watched them on our black and white TV – February 9, 1964. It was just my mother and me and a big bowl of popcorn. The anticipation was huge. It was all we talked about in school for days leading up to it. I remember feeling my heart beat so fast when they came out, and just being mesmerized. I also remember my mother looking at me quizzically and asking, “Do you really like this music?”

I really did. And I still do. Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark are no longer with us, but happily there is someone in charge who knows what this music meant to us boomers. So, tonight I will once again be glued to the television – now flat screen HD and wow – in color. I hope you’ll make a big bowl of popcorn and join me.