Blogging Boomers and Their Wide Ranging Tastes

     The Boomers are once again cooking up a blog's full of delightful dishes, offering as many specialties as even the hungriest Baby Boomer could possibly want. For starters, the Accidental Locavore reports that she finally got back into the kitchen. What was on the menu? Homemade pastrami from local grass-fed beef. Check it out here.

     (Also, dial into her very cool video clip, where she demonstrates the secrets of preparing zucchini and summer squash.)

     Do you ever wonder what it is like for an American expat to live in the Middle East? See how Katie Foster of "Arabian Tales" explained to her college friends the joys and challenges of "Living In An Islamic Country."

     (She remarks on the similarities between the basic values of Islam and her own Christian belief, and she also explains some of the lesser known aspects of women's rights and marriage.)

     Meanwhile, SoBabyBoomer shines a spotlight on Baby Boomers and entrepreneurship, pointing out that from 1996 to 2011 the number of Baby Boomers starting a business increased by nearly seven percent, the largest increase among all age groups. For people 20-44, the number of people starting a new business actually fell about five percent during that same time period.

     (He also reminds us that in America 10,000 Baby Boomers are turning 65 ... every day! He says it's important to encourage people -- especially those of us who are early retirees -- to continue to work "in ways that truly use their talents to support the economy as well as themselves.")

     Despite the business prospects for Baby Boomers, we all know that as we age few of us will escape either the role of the person in need of extra care or caregiver. Laura Lee wishes to share with you a bit of what she has learned about the natural guilt involved in being a primary caregiver.  

     Finally, Vaboomer wonders:  Are you a confident woman? Whatever your answer, she redefines the concept in a brief but insightful post at her portal to the Boomeranger world.

     As for me, I've been thinking about a few things lately, mostly to do with my health. I had a little scare last week, so I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with . . . hypochrondria. Fortunately.

     (I'll tell you more about that in my next post. But right now I've suddenly developed a strong craving for something from the kitchen. I don't know why. But regardless, I'm going to make myself a pastrami sandwich!)

Remember Her?

     Honestly, I don't remember much about her. She died when I was in junior high school (now known as middle school). But I recall that she loomed large in my young mind, as she was probably the most important woman in the country even though to me she seemed quite elderly. She was born in 1884, which made her almost as old as my grandmother.

      But she couldn't have been more different from my grandmother, who came to America in the late 1890s as a poor immigrant from Eastern Europe. This woman, who's first name was Anna, was born in Manhattan to a wealthy member of New York high society.

     But Anna's life was not simple, and it was not easy. Her mother died from diphtheria when she was only eight, and her father, an alcoholic, was confined to a sanatorium and then died two years later. One of her brothers (she had two brothers and a half brother) also died of diphtheria.

Her home in NY, now a National Historic Site

     Anna went to live with her grandmother in upstate New York along the Hudson River. She was shy and insecure as a child and according to one of her biographers she considered herself "ugly." She was home schooled until age 15, then sent off to a finishing school outside London, England, where she learned French and came under the tutelage of a feminist educator who encouraged her to develop her own independent thinking.

     After she returned to the U. S. she came out at a debutante ball at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, then went to work as a social worker in the New York slums. (Maybe she saw my grandmother there!) At the same time she met her future husband, a dashing Harvard student -- and famously took him on a tour of the tenements where she worked.

     They were married in 1905 by the headmaster of her husband's upper-class prep school, and went on a three-month honeymoon trip to Europe. They set up housekeeping in a Manhattan apartment provided by her husband's family and vacationed in upstate New York and in Maine. Over the next ten years the couple had six children, as her husband began to pursue a political life. He won election to the New York state senate, then an appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He decided to run for the U. S. Senate from New York, but he stumbled and lost in the primary to a fellow Democrat who in turn lost to Republican James W. Wadsworth (who served two terms 1914 - 1926).

     The path of their life soon changed, first when Anna found out that her husband was having an affair with her secretary. They did not get divorced, but Anna then resolved to achieve fulfillment on her own merits and not live in the shadow of her husband. Then, a couple of years later, in 1921, her husband fell ill -- diagnosed with polio (although researchers later suggested it might have been Guillain-Barre syndrome) -- and she stepped forward to take a more active life in politics, giving speeches, developing relationships and building her popularity.

     Her husband spent much of the 1920s fighting to regain his health, and in 1928 she had mixed feelings as he took up the call to run for governor of New York. She supported his ambitions, but feared that she would be relegated back to a behind-the-scenes role.

     Have you guessed who she is? The entire country got to know her after her husband was elected president of the United States and took office in 1933 during the depths of the Depression.

     But even before then, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt had been working for social progress by supporting union activity, calling for the establishment of a 48-hour week, and trying to abolish child labor. Now she took up the cause of her fellow women, spoke in favor of peaceful international relations, and supported rights for African Americans. She wrote about her concerns for women's magazines and penned a syndicated column called "My Day," which ran from 1936 to 1962, and in noting her daily activities addressed subjects such as unemployment, education, rural life and the role of women in society.  

     After FDR died in 1945, Eleanor worked at the United Nations under President Truman, and she supported Adlai Stevenson for president in 1952, 1956, and also in 1960. She had reservations about John Kennedy because of his early reluctance to condemn Joseph McCarthy. But she did eventually throw her support behind him, and after he was elected he in turn appointed her to another post at the U.N.

     There's a lot more to the Eleanor Roosevelt story. If you're interested, a good place to start is the 1995 Doris Kearns Goodwin Pulitzer Prize-winning book No Ordinary Time. Then there's Joseph Lash's 1971 tome Eleanor and Franklin, and a two-volume look at Eleanor Roosevelt by feminist Blanche Wiesen Cook, as well as Eleanor Roosevelt's own autobiography, a book of the best of her "My Day" columns and a guide to her everyday philosophy called You Learn By Living.

     Or if you happen to be in New York, take a trip up the Hudson and visit her house Val-Kill, located across the street from the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park, NY.

       

Welcome to the Month of May

     In early Europe, May 1 marked the first day of summer. The summer solstice on June 21 was actually considered midsummer. May Day was a time to celebrate the fertility of the earth -- both for spring planting and for human sexual activity.

     Pagan villagers danced around the Maypole, a symbol that historians have been trying to interpret for centuries. One theory is that the Maypole symbolized the axis of the earth; another says it represented the trees that figured so prominently in the Germanic tradition. Or, as many have suggested, it may have been a phallic symbol representing fertility. Check out the youtube clip at the end of the post to see which interpretation Lerner & Loewe most likely relied on when penning the classic from Camelot.

     May 1 is also a day of solidarity for workers around the world. The origin of this commemoration goes back to the Haymarket massacre.

     In the 1880s, the U. S. Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions declared that a full workday should be limited to eight hours. When factories refused to cooperate, on May 1, 1886, thousands of workers went on strike. Two days later Chicago police opened fire on a group of strikers, killing six people. The next day a bomb exploded and killed several cops, leading to more police attacks. The person who set the bomb was never identified, but eight workers were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Four of them were executed; one committed suicide; and three were eventually pardoned. On May 1, 1890, sympathizers held demonstrations throughout Europe and America to memorialize the Haymarket massacre, and in the years that followed socialists, unionists -- and now Occupy Wall Streeters -- have celebrated May Day as an international workers' holiday.

     May is also National Bike Month, which is dedicated to the "power of the bicycle and the many reasons we ride." The week of May 14 - 18 is Ride Your Bike to Work Week.

     May is also Get Caught Reading Month, as well as Asian and Pacific Islander month. The first week of May was named Asian American Heritage Week by Congress in 1978, to commemorate the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants in 1843 as well as the contribution of many Chinese Americans who helped build the first transcontinental railroad, completed in May 1869.

     May 1 also marks the birthday of some famous musicians, including Kate Smith (1907), Judy Collins (1939), Rita Coolidge (1945) and Tim McGraw (1967).

     But perhaps most important for us geezers, the U. S. Administration on Aging has declared May Older Americans Month, which it calls "a proud tradition that shows our nation's commitment to recognizing the contributions and achievements of older Americans." Every year brings a different theme. Last year it was "Connecting the Community. This year the theme is "You're Never Too Old to Play."

     Hmm, never too old to play, huh? Okay, I guess I owe it to my fellow older Americans -- I will go out and play golf today.

     P. S. As a follow-up to my two postings on the cost of health care, take a look at Sunday's New York Times article "In Hopeful Sign, Health Spending Is Flattening Out." But the question:  Is it a good sign because health care might be getting marginally more affordable? Or is it a bad omen since the reasons are largely due to the recession, when people lost health insurance and skipped nonurgent care?

     Now for that clip from the 1967 movie version of Camelot, starring Vanessa Redgrave :

My Fantasy Retirement Home

     I've just come indoors after having spent 2 hours working in the yard. (I've been fighting a yard for more than 30 years and so far the yard has won). And I've started to fantasize -- fantasize about the true retirement home I'd like to have.

     I currently live in the suburbs, with a little less than an acre of yard, and a big garage to store all our lawn and garden equipment plus the two cars we need because we can't get anywhere in our town without driving a couple of miles.

     The suburbs have served me well. I've raised two kids who've been able to play in our yard, go to a decent public school, enjoy the benefits of Little League and lots of other community activities. And to be honest, I like to work in the yard. I like getting dirty and smelling the grass up close and trying to grow a tomato plant or two.

     Just not too often; certainly not as much as I used to.

     My fantasy house might have a little patch of lawn -- about as big as my bedroom -- and a small garden where I could grow a few flowers and an herb or two. The size of my retirement garden would be the equivalent of about two window boxes.

     I think I would like to live in a small town -- not too big or bustling, but with sidewalks and a coffee shop down at the corner where I could walk in the morning. I do worry about the noise. I've had problems with noisy neighbors in the past. But let's face it, the older I get the less I'm able to hear, so maybe the ambient noise from cars and kids and dogs and lawnmowers won't bother me.

     I don't really like the mountains that much; they always seem cold and remote to me. I'm a lowlander at heart, used to a thick, humid atmosphere. But I want something different from the generic suburb where I've lived for most of my life.

Maybe a place like this. Can anyone guess where it is?

    So, perhaps I should go down to the sea. I can't really afford the seashore, I know, because I've spent vacation time in Cape Cod, and Cape May, and Myrtle Beach, and Sarasota, and San Diego, and you can't buy anything within a block or two of the ocean for much less than $1 million, or rent for less than $4K a month.

     But this is a fantasy. So put me near the seashore. Maybe not oceanfront or on the beach, but somewhere nearby, in town, by the harbor or on an inlet, or possibly on a lake.

     I do like to play golf, but I don't want to live in a golf community. That's too much golf. And besides, I don't know if I want to live in the bubble of a gated community. But I do want a social life -- so I'd want to go to a town where there are some other newly retired people who are open to new friendships, not a town where everyone knows everyone else's parents and aunts and uncles and have been friends since 4th grade and aren't interested in meeting new people.

     I'd nevertheless go in search of a golf course where I could play a round once a week or so, with some of my new friends. I'd frequent the local library -- maybe there's a book club I could join. I'd get to know the proprietors of the local businesses down the street and around the corner, especially the barista at my local coffee emporium. Not a Starbucks. But someplace called Perks or The Beanery or Higher Grounds or Joe's Place.

     My house would be an older home -- definitely prewar. Yes, I know that means you have to make more repairs. But the place will have town water and town sewers (I own a septic tank and leaching field right now -- and boy, am I ready to give those up!) And not too big. Two bedrooms might be enough. Maybe three. Enough for B and me, with enough room for the kids to visit but not so spacious that they'd want to stay for too long.

     That reminds me, my new town would have to be easily accessible so the kids would visit now and then. Not too far from an Interstate or major airport. With a mild climate -- not too hot in summer or too cold in winter. And if I'm going to get the kids to visit, there have to be some attractions that would appeal to them. The beach perhaps. And some nightlife. A place where there's some live music or live theater. Besides, B and I have taken up ballroom dancing in our dotage, so we'd want a place where we could cut a rug.

     Should I insist on a one-story house? That would be hard to find in an older home. Some people say you don't want to climb stairs when you get older. And I have bad knees. How about a compromise? A place with a master bedroom on the first floor, with a guest room or two on a smaller second floor -- maybe bumped out like a dormer. We'd also want a good medical facility nearby, but I think that would come automatically with the kind of place I'm describing.

     Is my vision completely unrealistic? Or more to the point, can anyone recommend a place they know that sounds like the place I'm envisioning in my head? Don't worry, I'm not about to move in next door to you. This is still just a fantasy. First, I've got to go cut the grass.

   

Blogging Boomers Carnival

     John Agno over at So Baby Boomer explains what a blog carnival is, then coaches us on the singular mission of the Blogging Boomers Carnival. If that's not enough (for those us who are really into Boomers), he also offers a few suggestions for books about Baby Boomers that you might enjoy reading.