The Portal to Boomeranger World

On the Road Again Pt 2--Boomer Nostalgia on the Radio

Boomer nostalgia is all over Broadway:   Boomer Broadway
in renewed Beatlemania:   Beatlemania

in Collectibles:
USA Today,  Boomer Auctions

and what is filling the airways is Boomer Oldies radio shows playing 60s, 70s and 80s tunes.

Today cruising west on Rt 80/90 to Toledo where we will turn north to Michigan. We are passing in and out of radio range and changing the stations as we go along. Town after town has a 60s, 70s, 80s station.

We pass the turn off to Kent State while listening to The Animals singing their rendition of "House of the Rising Sun"--which was the ruin of many a young man... 

Who were the National Guard members, probably not too much older than the students they gunned down? Were they ruined by their actions? Kent State

Gordon Lightfoot is coming to Cleveland and Roseanne will be playing Vegas soon...all this is looking back is fun and a distration from engaging in the more difficult tasks ahead  posed by the coming elections...Elections- Huff Post

Barack to the Future: What Will Presidential Hopefuls Do for Women?

Madelaine Albright signed on to Senator Obama's advisory team the other day in a move to heal the wounds from the recent historic, mind-blowing, I never thought to see in my life time, Democratic party presidential primary campaign.

I was a Clinton supporter, because I believe that having our first woman president in 230 YEARS would be an EXTRAORDINARY move forward for our country in declaring to the world that America has at last decided to acknowledge the bedrock depths of sexism and all its crafty and insidious interlinkings with racism, ageism,  class, and all the other power imbalances in our country.

BUT I will give my full and enthusiastic support to Senator Obama and HOPE if he is elected that he will do right by America's women and girls who constitute the majority of the population, the majority of the poor, the majority of the elderly, the majority of income discrimination, the majority who are at the bottom ranks of the labor force, the majority who are raped and sexually abused and harrassed, the majority of those who carry the double and triple burdens of caregiving to their own health detriment.

Jennifer H. Mieres, MD, FAHA and Terri Ann Parnell, RN and MA (with Carol Turkington) have pointed out the deliterious health effects, especially on women's heart health, of stress, gender, ethnicity, and other social factors such as poverty in their new book, "Heart Smart for Black Women and Latinas" (2008 St. Martin's). Our presidential candidates need to take into account issues such as these authors raise as they are crafting their strategies.

I HOPE Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain will do what no other presidents have ever done and recognize that women of ALL SHADES OF TAN are the majority of their citizenry.  Terressa Stovall writes in the current issue of the Montclair Times about the challenge to blacks and whites dealing with racism. I could not agree more. We have to acknowledge and repair the injuries of slavery and racism and how those continue to play out in the life of our nation. And we must change.

AND I challenge all to think beyond the simple dichotomy of black and white that excludes those of other heritages.

I challenge us to think in shades of tan and understand how those shades interlink with the  divides and discriminations that reside in the artificality of gender. We already see it with Michelle Obama getting slammed.

I'm No Madonna, but I Am An Older Adoptive Mom

What I find fascinating about the original Material Girl is her blunt out there larger than life self. I've been a Madonna fan since she acted in John Sayles movie, "Lianna." Well, she certainly did it again with her role as "Mama Madonna"--hey isn't that a duplicate--mama=madonna?Anyway, now she's been making waves with her efforts to adopt from Malawi. I can't comment on the pros and cons of this effort or whether or not she is a guinea pig for others to emulate, or whether you or I approve her actions or not. But Sister Mama, you are reFIRING! 

Mama Madonna

What I find fascinating is her coming to this difficult wonderful, demanding, enriching role around 50. I was 50 when I adopted. Now my daughter is 13 and  I am 63. There are thousands of us older adoptive moms (and Dads) out there. What being an older parent does for you is age you in particular ways. It is very demanding mentally and physically.

Your aging project/ trajectory is now two-fold while you are thinking ahead to your own reFIREMENT/retirement you are thinking down for the well-being of your child. (Of course all parents of conscience do this, but the contrast is a sharp one when there is such a big numbers difference.) It is a challenge to think down in age. What I mean is that over the course of those 50 years--a half century, you do develop a store house of wisdom (hopefully) and history. You have references and touch points and suddenly many of those have to be rethought in the light of the young life who is growing up in a world 50 years removed from your own!

Few of the children growing up nowadays know that seeds produce food. Or that digital and virtual are only a few years old. They live in an expanded and frightened world. Take for instance, the asbestos issue at my daughter's school. When it was found the whole school was evacuated and closed for two days during cleaning. My brother reminded me that our new state of the art high school in N.C. which opened in the late fifties was proud of the asbestos insulation on all the ducts and pipes delivering  heat to every classroom. So it is likely even probable that most of us boomers have contaminated lungs.

Because our childhood worlds are so different (similar to the distance between my mother and me--she remembering the first telephone, her first airplane [cloth and wood that landed in a cow pasture], her first paved road, her first automobile), I have to come up to speed on a daily basis. I resisted the cell phone for my daughter until I could understand that the virtual community was as important as the face face community and is was/is as REAL to her. And since she is the one who will most probably live to 100 or more, given the increasing numbers of centenarians, she needs to be fluent in her world. I am running to catch up.

So, Sister Mama (Madonna) when you get your complications worked out, get set to enter a new world. Maybe we'll be seeing you soon in a new music Youtube as "Virtual Mama Girl!" And, Madonna, I love it that you are letting your 50 year old neck and hands be natural. That is a good thing.

 

Baby Boomers - Moving and Grooving to the Oldies with Richard Simmons!

Richard Simmons has always made me giggle. He is unabashed in his out there personality AND his commitment to health and fitness.

He has teamed up with Ocean Spray to promote their new cranberry drink and get another go round for himself. Well, I say good on him!! He is certainly  a boomer icon and a leader in the fitness movement--speaking to ordinary women and helping them with a model of supportive man that may have been missing in their lives.

It is hard to do anything in life if you are totally on your own. So Richard good for you and good for Ocean Spray cranberry juice which has been a life saver for many women suffering from yeast infections. 

Rock on Richard!

Free Ocean Spray Bogercise Recipe Booklet

Why Woodstock Still Matters to Boomers and Everyone

So were you at Woodstock? I almost went--life intervened. But the impact of Woodstock can not be underrated. Go take a look at this youtube posting about the era and meaning of Woodstock.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19VhCCly_9s

It's gotten a really bad rap in the intervening years. This might be movie and Tom Hanks (I'm a fan, really! Really, I am!) heresy to say so, but I did not like "Forrest Gump--for its pretty conservative views. Mom and apple pie and all that. We do see a sweep of American history through the 'Innocent's' eyes, but the view of the social change that emerged in the 1960s and extended actively through the 1980s is certainly pretty negatively presented in that movie. And I think these views mirrored the backward looking national mood in the post-woodstock era opposing extending the promises of our constitution to everyone.

What I found inspiring and still find inspiring about those early years symbolized by 'Woodstock', was the opening of our national mind to new ideas about the promise of America. There would be no Senator Hillary Clinton or Senator Barack Obama running neck and neck for the presidency If the "60's" hadn't happened. I mean this is totally astonishing and INSPIRING. Regardless of who you support, whether Hillary, Barack or John, it is WONDERFUL that at long long long last, our country is saying to everyone and to the world, we really believe in the truth of our constitution. Not only do we believe, but we have viable candidates to vote for. Amazing and wonderful.

I still have my grandmother's wide gold satin sash which she wore in sufferage marches in North Carolina prior to women (of all shades of tan) winning the 78 year long battle to vote. It's just so "duh" now that women of every ethnicity, class and religion  vote. But in my family immediate family history that was not the case.

So when you think 'Woodstock', don't just think sex, drugs and rock and roll (rock history), but think civil rights that brought the Voting rights Act and the 1964 Civil rights Act, the peace movement that ended the Vietnam War, the women's movement that opened education and jobs to women NOW, that said violence against women in any form is not acceptable, that laid the ground work for the internet connecting us all and sent us into outer space to see our lovely lovely and environmentally fragile home environment--the beautiful blue marble of Earth.

So Woodstockers--whether you went or not, BE PROUD. And get active!

WOODSTOCK LAND FOR SALE! By the way, Max Yasgur's farm is up for sale for $8 million, according to The Boomer Chronicles. 

Mr. Yasgur died in 1973.  Mr. Roy Howard, who owned a package store and beverage distributorship in the area, bought his home and about 100 acres around it in 1985.   Lovely acres in Bethel, NY with a lot of history!! 

Read more:  Boomer Chronicles
Real Estate agent and details:  Jospe Properties