Here’s the thing about being a Baby Boomer. Well, a number of things, actually. We were born after our fathers came home from World War II. But we’re all old guys now. There is nothing babyish about us, unless you regard the aging process as a reversion to infancy—no teeth, no hair and a tendency to babble and drool. I have not reached the drooling stage yet and babbling is a subjective thing, you know. One person’s babble is another’s doctoral dissertation.
Old guys and babies have a lot in common.
As for the hair, I do have an infant’s pate, round and smooth, with some help from the razor, but the razor becomes less of a factor as the years pass. When I started shaving my head some 15 years ago, I was getting a jump on a receding hairline. Now I’m merely accommodating a proceeding bald line. You would think there are many others out there serving as advocates for my generation. In truth, some of our most esteemed writers, commentators, publishers, directors, politicians, artists and musicians are my generational peers, but they are getting nudged aside, in some cases elbowed and shoved, and they are more concerned with staying current than staking a claim on encroaching geezerhood.
When I think of a spokesman of the good old days, Andy Rooney comes to mind, but he’s of my parents’ generation and he tends to be mean-spirited and dismissive of all things contemporary and youthful. My generation was the first to question the wisdom of our elders and the term “generation gap,” already archaic, emerged from that confrontation.I’m not into the good old days so much. Certainly there are simpler times I miss, but the Baby Boomers were the generation of rebellion, stalwart advocates of the powers of change with a driving beat and the amps cranked all the way up. Some of my peers find themselves overwhelmed by the dizzying pace of technology. They retreat in fear, intimidated and shaking their fists at a creation that has made millionaires out of people young enough to be their grandchildren.We may be the last generation to value experience. At first we laughed at the idea that young children were better equipped to program our VCRs (Remember them?) and set up our home computers, but that didn’t last long. Surely there is something insipid here. Prior learning and experience, it sometimes seemed, were barriers that exacerbated our inability to function in a digital world.I am not immune to such frustration, but it doesn’t make me angry or feel powerless as it does some Baby Boomers. As a writer relying on the human condition and its foibles for commentary, I see it as a wealth of material to mine for my own benefit. It is both selfish and therapeutic.I suppose that if this blog is about anything it is about aging. Hey, even the young age, and maybe I can give you a head’s up on what to expect. You’ll be where I am before you know it. I’m not saying this will be the place to come for tips on graceful aging. They’re just some observations from a guy who is getting older and not afraid to talk about it. It will also be about technology and health and good books and bad movies and musical tastes and covering the news and politics and losing weight and hair in your ears and washboard abs and reality television and blogging and cellphone etiquette and Welsh Corgis and waiting in line and waitresses calling you “Sweetie.” Stuff like that.—Wes Skillings
