Boomer Survey on Love, Sex, and Intimacy

Boomer readers! Got something to say on these subjects?

This is a between-the-posts announcement to alert you to some exciting happenings on my friend Eileen Williams' blog, The Feisty Side of Fifty! Eileen recently interviewed and posted information about a love, sex, and intimacy survey being conducted by Suzanne Braun Levine. Suzanne is the founding editor of Ms. Magazine, who worked there for 17 years, a friend of Gloria Steinem's. Suzanne has written several books on boomer women and related topics.

She also has created a questionnaire to get you thinking about marriage, partnerships, and other relationships you’ve experienced over the years. So take a few minutes and let her know how you’ve grown and changed since you hit midlife. You can email your answers to info@suzannebraunlevine.com

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Visit the link to Feisty Side of Fifty for the complete text of the questionnaire. As a thank you gift, the first 10 respondents will receive a free copy of Suzanne's best selling book, 50 is the New Fifty, so be sure to include your name and address. (Your responses to the questionnaire will remain anonymous.)

May you learn more about love and life in the process!

Vintage Cars: Seen the USA in Our Kaiser-Fray

I have loved old cars as long as I can remember. In Sacramento where I live, we have the fabulous California Auto Museum. I go there every few years, usually with visiting relatives. I drive down Memory Lane in my mind, wearing cool outfits from my hottest flashbacks.

When I was young, impressionable, and madly in love with my boyfriend Keene in the 1965-69 era of my life, we visited many a museum and old car rally in and near Milwaukee. I love that Mel’s, my favorite spot for a burger and boomerbilia, is laden with old cars images. I can almost hear the engines rev behind the jukebox music from the ‘50s and ‘60s. What great background music with a chocolate Coke! And don’t you love those old diners that actually have a car that looks crashed into the wall, its hind end (usually finned) there for us to admire like a guy with nice buns? (See what happens when I'm transported back to my teenage, hormone-abundant past?)

Just as I have written about finding a photo of your inner child—your favorite baby or kid pic—what’s your picture of your “inner car?” Maybe it's the one that symbolizes the mobility and adventure of your childhood. For me it was my parents’ 1951 Kaiser-Frazer.

The Kaiser took us on a great road trip to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins who lived near Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. I write about this nostalgia trip in Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights—the book. It’s one of the most laugh-out-loud chapters about an encounter with a bear, my mom’s lack of outdoor skills, and my wacky Italian-American relatives whose assimilation into the Great Melting Pot I call “Gumbo Italiano.”

What do your car memories that stand out in your mind say about you? (This is a different kind of auto recall!) The Kaiser was roomy for its time and very modern. I never thought of my parents as adventurers, but both this car and that trip defy my perception of them as somewhat conservative, suburban Midwesterners. As I remember, mom referred to the color as “maroon,” a hue we might now call burgundy. I’d love a car that color now! I have to say, though, the wine coloring concept stuck. Even though the color of my Honda is called Titanium; I think of it as Champagne.

Old cars took us to the things and people that were important in our lives. Usually, that was church, school, relatives, and friends. They were often the site of major milestones—first kiss, first sexual encounter, maybe where he “popped the question,” and often where you broke up with him. No wonder our car memories are laden with such meaning. Not to forget: Cars symbolized masculinity to most guys—testosterone on wheels! That explains why we’re turned onto them. We can’t help it. It’s glandular.

The first car I owned—well, OK, Mom and Dad bought it for me-- was a 1965 Plymouth Valiant. Pretty “plain vanilla.” My adventures in it were far from it—very colorful. I had some real “Sex in the City” type moments, shared in my memoir, that cover many of those important milestones in a mixture of pain and hilarity.

My first spiritual teacher used to say that cars, especially in dreams, are a symbol of you as a person. They represent your physical body, the vehicle your soul drives through this lifetime.

I have a lot of soul. I like that the Kaiser was big, eye-catching, and innovative in its day. It took me on adventures far from home, ones that offered many surprises and unexpected connections. Even though I only saw the USA in our Kaiser-Fray back then, I think it activated my wanderlust that ultimately took me as far from home as England, Greece, and Turkey. It was also a car to admire. When it was polished to perfection (remember Simoniz car wax?), it could bust my shirt buttons taking a spin with Mom and Dad. I’d look to see if the neighbors were watching.

The Frazer was one of a kind, a model only produced for a short time from 1946-51. I think of it, like me, as an early baby boomer. The company had its management issues, and the car failed in the end because they weren’t properly addressed—also because it didn’t meet fast enough America’s growing lust for lots of horsepower. Still, it represented innovation, promise, and its unique design still leaves me gasping for its unusual lines that epitomize “classic car” for me.

I think the Kaiser taught me to not only be adventurous, but that it’s OK to look good, even to glean an admiring eye for it. Now I’m vintage like the Kaiser, even older than our ’51 classic! I need to use a lot of Simonize to look spiffy, but my chassis is still classy, even if wider than it should be. I’ll just consider my padding to be an innovation we all appreciate on modern cars—those rubber bumpers that cushion us from the bumps and crashes of everyday life.

As my mobile boomer icon, the Kaiser-Fray is worth keeping for what it symbolizes to me: big, bold ideas, simpler times, a roomy sense of freedom, and some of the best memories of my happy childhood.

~~~

Photo: Thanks to John MacDonald of http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com for permission to use his photo of a 1951 Kaiser Frazer.

More on Kaiser-Frazers: To see a gorgeous close-up of the grille the Kaiser-Frazer was famous for, check out the cover of Built to Better the Best by Jack Mueller. More Links: The Wiki, Kaiser-Frazer is Born (July 25, 1945), Frazer History.

~~~


COMMENT CAPER: Don’t forget, your comments count in a drawing for a free book, now through April 22.

DREAM DATE: Joyce’s interview on dreams is coming up this Monday, April 20 @ 9:00p PDT.

Do You Really Want to Live to Be a Hundred?

“Edie” turns 100 at the end of this month. She is not happy about it.

My brother-in-law’s mom is a total character. Twenty years ago, I suspect she was like Grandma Mazur in the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich. In her youth, she was surely Auntie Mame.

Until recently, Edie had all her wits about her, but she has been complaining most of the decade I have known her, “I don’t know what the hell I’m still doing here.” Then she goes on a monologue grumbling to God, who apparently doesn’t know what He’s doing.

She’s actually in great health, overall, except her teeth are wearing out. She is outliving them. Her 75-year-old son says all the time, “She’s in better shape than I am. I swear; she’ll outlive me.” Teeth, sons—she leaves them in the wake of more longevity than the Energizer Bunny.

Edie has lost nearly all of her extended family, although she is fortunate to have her two adult children nearby. They spend what time they can with her, and she’s in a lovely board and care home that could pass for yours or mine. In fact, it looks a lot better than mine. Her room is spotless, and she loves to show off her trinkets and treasures when we visit. That’s about as excited as she gets about anything these days, although I hear coffee ice cream also gets a rise out of her.

I don’t know—but I suspect—her boredom with life has finally taken its toll, probably more a cause for deterioration than age itself. I can’t remember when she last had something to sink her teeth into, which may be why they are weakening. Sure, she likes seeing her daughter, son, granddaughter, and great-grandkids … but her spark has gone out.

I’ll never forget the day we first met. At the time, my husband and I were living together, not married. That made me suspect for starters. After her grand entrance, Edie took a piercing look at me—a head to toe evaluation. She announced, “My name is Edith. You can call me Edie. I ask a lot of questions. You’ll get used to it.”

Fortunately, I had been warned about her and was braced for her blunt nosiness. I came to be more amused than annoyed by her pointed inquiries; and she became very fond of me. I made sure we did her many kindnesses, always remembering her on birthdays and major holidays. I thought she was a kick in the pants, still do, and can’t help but love her for all her rough edges and downright crusty nature.

This Christmas, though, she wasn’t her old self. She’s starting to slip. “How old am I?” she asked me. Apparently, she asks others family members the same thing all the time.

When I told her she was almost 100, it was as news to her. “I’m gonna be a hundred? I had no idea I was that old. I never thought I’d live that long.”

At first, Edie’s lack of enthusiasm about life was such an antithesis to my own lust for it, I had a hard time accepting her longing for death. She has a plot back East and her funeral arrangements all made. She can’t wait to keep the date. I’ll miss her, but another part of me can’t help but hope she’ll get what she longs for.

Edie is my flip side. I constantly worry that I’ll run out of time before I can do what I really want to do. I don’t mind dying; I just mind doing it before I feel finished. Edie is done.

Over the years, I began to understand and even honor her desire to die, regardless of the fact that, so far, God won’t have it. We’ve chanted all the clichés about how He’s not done with her yet. They are not comforting.

Edie’s eyesight and hearing are fading. This was an eye-opener to me, no pun intended, considering I already have sensory challenges, and I'm forty years younger than Edie. Makes me wonder how I’d fare at 100. Further, it makes me wonder if I even want to belong to the Centenarian Club. A lot of joy went out of Edie’s life along with the ability to read books. The audiocassette player and books on tape we got her didn’t appeal, even before her hearing worsened. I’m sure I’d lose a lot of my spark without the stimulation of constant learning or entertainment.

This story may sound dreary, but I think Edie is telling us something about life. Life without passion is empty. We see people all the time who are physically broken, even mentally or developmentally challenged, but as long as they are doing something they love, they are vital. A hundred would be glorious as long as I still have zest for living and reasonable health. Otherwise, I don’t think so.

Next time I hear the clock’s loud ticking toward a vague Running Out of Time, I’ll remember what I’ve learned from Edie. She has helped me rethink things.

Maybe I don’t have to feel done before I die. Better to have some mountains to climb, some passions still stirring, and a well-padded To Do List than to be done and have life left over.

~~~

Postcript: Since I wrote this piece in January 2008, Edie finally got her wish. She passed peacefully last spring at the age of 100. This is a tribute to her.

Topical Link: World’s Oldest Woman Turns 115

Photo Credit: WITH AGE COMES WISDOM © Rinderart Dreamstime.com

© Joyce Mason, 2009 – All Rights Reserved

COOL SAGING CONVERSATIONS: Keep Boomer Bucks in Flux; Find the Soul in Your Money

Cool Saging Conversations has been moved from the sidebar to a regular post. It will appear on Saturdays.

This week’s Cool Saging Conversation is a response to Pop Art Diva’s Saturday Soapbox. Her topic is “Today’s Economy – What’s It Doing to Retiring Boomers?”

The impacts have been widely published. For many of us, it means putting off retirement or full retirement. At my house, the plan to draw from my husband’s 401k until I can collect Social Security is no longer a viable gap-financing plan. Since most of his retirement fund is in stocks, cashing in at a fraction of the face value does not make sense. We’ll hold till the market recovers. That means I’m back to work part-time as a retired annuitant. I am grateful to have work among friends, helping the worthy cause of environmental education. I work at my outside job less than two days a week; one at home. In a perfect world, I’d be writing full-time, but in today’s reality, I feel completely blessed for this “bridge work.”

Last night, I had dinner with several friends. An attorney I know, a woman I admire for her wise investments, considerable net worth, and keen planning skills, is completely reworking her life. She envisioned living on her beachfront property on the California coast by now. Instead, she’s selling it. As she sees it, she’ll be working another 6-7 years, newly self-employed. She enjoyed semi-retirement, as I did. But for now, it’s back to work!

I’m not so sure that going back to work is terrible for most boomers. We are not the “retiring” type, either in the literal or figurative sense. We have been forced to keep our boomer brains active learning cyber tools and ways to keep up in an ever-changing world. We are not exactly the “old” dogs of yesteryear that can’t learn new tricks.

I love Pop Art’s idea that all boomers should flex our collective cash flow power by going out and spending $50 on something we were too afraid to buy. I believe surviving this deep valley in global finances requires a balance between hording and spending foolishly.

Since I like to view life from the vast lane, I am more concerned about how our collective mental and emotional attitudes impact this crisis. Another friend of mine who was at dinner last night just came back from a workshop in New Mexico on “fund raising from the heart” with Lynne Twist, a woman from Marin County, CA who has raised over $100 million to stave off world hunger. One of her points? Money does no good unless it’s circulating. We need to keep money flowing without blowing it.

This is a time to reassess whether our spending aligns with our values. Lynne Twist’s book, The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life, would make a great read for anyone who wants to use this economic free-fall to his or her optimal advantage. What if we all spent money in integrity on what we value most? I want to live long in that world!

More importantly, our dinner conversation came back to yet another profound concept. Parts of our current economic system are dying a natural death, and they need to be helped through this process in the same way we’d give compassionate hospice care to dying relatives. Fierce competition and planned obsolescence cannot work in a global economy. If there is any lesson flashing in neon lights, it’s that we are all interconnected now—not just a hippy dippy metaphysical idea, but in fact. What happens to the One happens to the All. Let’s give the bits of our economic system that no longer serve us a dignified death while we find ways to wrap our money in our highest purpose. This is more than “back to work.” The real work is the reworking/rehaul of our economic system.

Like the phoenix that rises from the ashes, I believe our economy will come back stronger, fairer, and pave the way to a better world. Overnight? Probably not. Hold the vision—and don’t hold back all your cash!

Go spend 50 bucks on something that really matters to you.

~~~

Read these past Cool Saging Conversations:

Techno-Boom!

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Don’t Be A Dinosaur

Hot Masthead, Cool Makeover

Check out this hot, cool new look! This boomin’ corner of cyberspace just got a glamour treatment by Pop Art Diva! Thanks, Terri, for this fabulous and colorful transformation for Hottie/Cool. She’s becoming quite a blog babe!

I had a neat experience recently with Kayla, the teenager and budding author I mentor. Kayla had brought her protagonist into a unique setting in her novel, just in passing. Until we started brainstorming, Kayla didn’t realize this unusual place had a real purpose and potential for furthering her story in a most hilarious way. We had a discussion about the right and left brain—how our creative right brains often give us a bits of information or ideas. Then it’s up to our left brains and analytical skills to figure out what we’re supposed to do with them.

That’s how Mini Me—Joyce at Three—got to be prominent on this blog and in my new masthead. When I discovered this photo in an album some years ago, I knew instantly that it was "the" picture of my inner child. The round, Jester motif picture frame was pure synchronicity—something I found in a unique shop on a business trip to Minneapolis. It took a long time before I realized that Joyce Jr. belonged in it.

Everyone should have a picture of his or her inner child where s/he can see it often. Mini You is the source of your inspiration, playfulness, and the beginnings of your lifelong process of learning by trial and error. Little You lived out loud and was full of wonder! This aspect of ourselves is what makes cool later living possible. If your childhood was troublesome and lacking in this aspect, let Big You nurture Little You and remember the wise words of novelist Tom Robbins: “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

It took many things adding up cumulatively before I realized: my intuition to have Mini Me in my blog masthead represents an important aspect of blowing up the old Old. Stomp your foot and refuse to be a fuddy duddy!

Then there is the fact that we are called “baby” boomers. That surge of post-war fertility that we were born of packs a lot of symbolic whammy. We are a generation that is fertile with imagination and creativity. Our population swell is swellest of all as our collective wisdom permeates the general population all at once. In the same way, our sheer numbers, as children, changed how society coped with most everything from child rearing to education and housing.

This year at Winter Solstice, the Magical Child was the theme of our Solsisters celebration. I shared this photo, and everyone caught the concept instantly and planned to go home and find the picture of her Inner Child. I invited everyone to bring it to next year’s celebration.

Young me and Older Me have a constant intuitive dialogue that Terri has captured as an electric, psychic bond joining past and present. There is that well-known addage--heavy, but at one level highly truthful, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Remembering the best of our childhood past is no condemnation—why the TV show Happy Days was so popular. Or if we’re condemned to laughter, joy, wide-eyed curiosity, and high energy from here on out, give me a life sentence.

Boomer Tube Babies

I’ll start this post with a poem I wrote circa 1973, a homage to the role that early TV played in my life. Within it, I’ve included links to many wonderful “blast from the past” programs. Enjoy exploring them after reading this ditty:

Test Tube Baby

Tom Terrific
Mighty Manfred Wonderdog
everfaithful companion
Crabby Appleton
Ding Dong School bells
Pinky Lee and Mean Old Mister Tooth Decay

Eyeball to eyeball
small screen tube
Uncle Bucky, Uncle Ned
and me.

Rootie Kazootie was full of zip and joy.
I was full of wit
An early TV whiz kid
Ah, Kid,
you haven’t changed a bit.


Head Trip
Few people today consider TV to be a place where a kid could sharpen her wits. The baby years of television did that for me—and more!

My mother loved to tell this story about my turn-on and turning point when it came to television. I was only a year old, and my parents—perennial gadget junkies—were flipping through the four channels Chicago had to offer in 1949 on their 10-inch black-and-white television. Leave it to them to be the first couple on the block to buy one of those new-fangled boxes. Howdy Doody caught my eye (or “How Do Ya Doody,” as my mom used to call him). I got so excited; I stood on my head!

Television has been standing me on my head ever since.

TV was my teacher, my artistic muse, my playmate, my babysitter, and my Joy in a Box. I learned to color with Miss Frances and on another show, I used one of those nifty pieces of film plastic you put on the screen, turning your B&W into a rainbow gallery thanks to a kid with crayons. In those days before color and sophisticated special effects, dragons like Ollie, of Kukla and Fran, piqued my curiosity about the real thing. While my mom was perennially busy being Mrs. Cunningham from Happy Days—baking, coffee klatching, cleaning, and home-making as a true profession—I was off getting my little brain in gear and my creativity tested when I wasn’t doing it running around our double lot property, raising Cain and clouds of dirt. I was the oldest kid in the neighborhood. I got bored quickly with kids considerably younger than me. TV offered cool adults—much more interesting than my parents!—and kids of all ages.

Radio Kids and Boob Tube Babies
It wasn’t until I married my first husband in the ‘70s that I realized how baby boomers might be unique as the first boob tube babies. My ex, born six years before me, came from the era of radio. He regaled me with stories of his favorite shows, and I bought him cassette reproductions of many of the classics as gifts: George Burns & Gracie Allen, The Shadow, Fibber McGee and Molly.

Laramie claimed that being raised on radio gave him a fertile imagination, unlike the TV generation behind him. He had to imagine it all with no visual cues. We boomers were handed our images on a silver platter. TV was my pabulum. His theory sounded good, but if it were true, why did I grow up so creative?

I went through a long period in my thirties where I thought I was too good for TV or TV wasn’t good enough for me—something like that. It was all crap, as far as I was concerned, a time when the expression “boob tube” hit home for me. There was nothing good on TV, and I preferred to read books, go to lectures, and chase after all the wrong men.

What has TV meant to you over the course of your life? What is your relationship with your TV shows and characters?

My husband Tim is constantly amused by how emotional and involved I get with the characters in the shows I love. They are my family. I mourn when they die or otherwise move on, and I swear at the writers who send them to questionable fates—or worse, yet, leave me between seasons on a cliffhanger.

While I suspect there are differences worth exploring between Radio Kids and Boob Tube Babies, I’m most fascinated by the theory of Steven D. Stark in his book, “Glued to the Set: The 60 Television Shows That Made Us Who We Are Today.” Stark believes that in a country as diverse as the United States, TV has created common reference points and a shared culture. His book covers the TV events he feels most shaped us into the nation we are today. This idea captivates me, because communication and connection are near the top of my personal needs hierarchy, as well as a sense of belonging. TV covers them all.

Stark also admonishes us not to throw the boob tube baby out with the bath water. In its diversity, television has it all—the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in-between. Boomers are the test tube babies, because we were the first to splash in this TV pool of shared culture. Obviously, since Stark and others have written whole books on the topic, I am only scratching the surface of what it means to be have been on the forefront of this cultural melting pot. For example, Stark believes the real import of my beloved Howdy Doody was the opportunity to expand children’s marketing. Older boomers (born in the late 1940s) have been bombarded with advertising images, some of us nearly from Day 1 of our little lives.

You, Me and Mr. T.
Nope, I don’t mean the guy with the Mohawk and gold chains, but our relationship with Mr. Television Himself. If you’ve got 10 minutes, let’s do a self-discovery exercise. Give yourself a 5-minute limit for the first two bullets. Open up a computer file or grab some paper (or print this out and do it later). Don’t think too hard. Write from the top of your head:

* Name your top 5 favorite TV shows of all time.
* Name your top 5 most memorable commercials.

Now take another 5 minutes and make a header for each show or commercial. Write:

* Why did you love this show or commercial?
* Why do you think you remember it or it speaks to you from the past?
* What might each show’s prominence in memory say about you?

I hope this post sparks some dialogue in the Comments, because I truly believe that being the first wave of boob tube babies left a deep imprint on our generation. If nothing else, we were cued in early to the possibility of nationwide and ultimately global community. We have had the influence of others outside our family and tribe through television characters from an early age. Plus, we were treated to some of the most awesome shows ever written: Sid Caesar, Your Show of Shows, Hit Parade, I Love Lucy, Father Knows Best, I Remember Mama and a host of others. (Here’s more nostalgia if you want to listen later to some of your favorite boomer TV show theme songs.) If enough of you do the exercise, I’d love to share excerpts in a follow-up post if you’ll e-mail me your results.

Boomer Tube Babies are still a part of a great experiment that melds culture, marketing, and turning life into entertainment. The latter is such a hallmark of cool later living; it might just explain why cutting our teeth on the Golden Years of Television is giving our golden years more glitter.