The thing you have to remember is, it's all about us.
Us. You know, us. The only people who matter. The boomers.
You can't get away from us. We are everywhere. We "redefine" everything. Everybody else has to step aside for us, delay their dreams for us, pitch their products to us, change at every stage of our lives to meet our desires and demands.
I am reminded of this not just because almost every time I turned on the TV during the last week I ran across another rerun of "The Boomer Century," although that's probably what set me on this recurring jag. I could imagine my kids watching this two-hour wet kiss to my generation, recoiling in horror at the prospect of being stuck with the cranky, high-maintenance, old-age version of the most self-absorbed people in American history - maybe all of history - for another 40 years.
It's all the other reminders. It's so suffocating that even I, the most important boomer of all, want to get away from it.
Like everyone else, I can't escape the constant ads for cholesterol-lowering drugs, for erectile dysfunction drugs, for osteoporosis drugs. You didn't see so many of those 10 or 15 years ago, did you? That's because we were only in our 40s and didn't need them. And when we didn't need them, they weren't important.
I just received a press release noting an alleged impending calamity in the airline industry. We air travelers "will lose the services of an estimated 5,000 of this nation's most experienced and trusted pilots - many of them Vietnam War and Gulf War I veterans - if the Federal Aviation Administration continues to drag its feet on ending its discriminatory 'Age 60 Rule,'" it said.
This sky-is-falling pronouncement was to announce a lawsuit filed by the brand-new Senior Pilots Coalition, formed just this past February, looking to throw out the Age 60 Rule.
It really tugs at the heartstrings, doesn't it? "Most experienced and trusted" is a transparent hint that you won't be safe if these pilots are forced to retire at 60, as all others have since 1959. And how is the fact that some of them are war veterans relevant, unless you're trying to lay on a guilt trip that if you don't support these pilots, it's as bad as not supporting the troops?
Why do you suppose we suddenly have a "fast-growing" Senior Pilots Coalition and a lawsuit challenging their mandatory retirement age? Could it be because boomers are now turning 60 at the rate of one every eight seconds?
Us. You know, us. The only people who matter. The boomers.
You can't get away from us. We are everywhere. We "redefine" everything. Everybody else has to step aside for us, delay their dreams for us, pitch their products to us, change at every stage of our lives to meet our desires and demands.
I am reminded of this not just because almost every time I turned on the TV during the last week I ran across another rerun of "The Boomer Century," although that's probably what set me on this recurring jag. I could imagine my kids watching this two-hour wet kiss to my generation, recoiling in horror at the prospect of being stuck with the cranky, high-maintenance, old-age version of the most self-absorbed people in American history - maybe all of history - for another 40 years.
It's all the other reminders. It's so suffocating that even I, the most important boomer of all, want to get away from it.
Like everyone else, I can't escape the constant ads for cholesterol-lowering drugs, for erectile dysfunction drugs, for osteoporosis drugs. You didn't see so many of those 10 or 15 years ago, did you? That's because we were only in our 40s and didn't need them. And when we didn't need them, they weren't important.
I just received a press release noting an alleged impending calamity in the airline industry. We air travelers "will lose the services of an estimated 5,000 of this nation's most experienced and trusted pilots - many of them Vietnam War and Gulf War I veterans - if the Federal Aviation Administration continues to drag its feet on ending its discriminatory 'Age 60 Rule,'" it said.
This sky-is-falling pronouncement was to announce a lawsuit filed by the brand-new Senior Pilots Coalition, formed just this past February, looking to throw out the Age 60 Rule.
It really tugs at the heartstrings, doesn't it? "Most experienced and trusted" is a transparent hint that you won't be safe if these pilots are forced to retire at 60, as all others have since 1959. And how is the fact that some of them are war veterans relevant, unless you're trying to lay on a guilt trip that if you don't support these pilots, it's as bad as not supporting the troops?
Why do you suppose we suddenly have a "fast-growing" Senior Pilots Coalition and a lawsuit challenging their mandatory retirement age? Could it be because boomers are now turning 60 at the rate of one every eight seconds?
Why weren't the boomers pushing to end such "blatant discrimination" when we were in our 30s and 40s? Weren't we concerned about the Greatest Generation pilots - World War II veterans - being cut off while still in their primes? Could it be because we wanted those geezers out of the way, so we could take their jobs?
But now that we, the "We'll-Tell-You-We're-The-Greatest" generation are the geezers, that barrier has to be tossed to accommodate us.
Finally (for the moment), my present mood might come from the fact that I can't get away from reading and hearing about the next front in the boomers' war-on-everybody-else, which will arrive within the next decade. This will be over driving.
There's no mandatory age to surrender your driver's license. But there are sensible calls being made these days for older drivers to be tested more than once every five years.
Yet those initiatives are already crashing, so to speak. A bill in the New Hampshire House that would have required tests every other year for drivers older than 70, and then every year for those older than 75, has been shelved because of a "perception among the public that it was discriminatory," said House Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Ryan.
Of course it's discriminatory, just as it is discriminatory to lard extra rules onto "junior operator" licenses. But there is good reason for that discrimination. In New Hampshire, drivers over 75 were involved in as many fatal accidents as those ages 16 to 20.
But, that won't matter to us. If we can't see or react well enough to drive safely, everybody else ought to get out of our way. Such proposals are already being called "ridiculous ... insulting" and too expensive because it will cost $30 more a year for a license renewal - probably about what it costs for bus fare to Foxwoods.
I suppose 10 years after that, when we are dying at the rate of one every eight seconds, we'll be looking to sue God. How will the world ever get along without us?
Believe it or not, fellow boomers, probably better than when we were here.
Taylor Armerding is associate editorial page editor of The Eagle-Tribune. He may be reached at 978-946-2213 or at tarmerding@eagletribune.com
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