Baby Boomers: Will there be enough gold for the “Golden Years”?

The Baby Boomer generation is creating  “Battle of the Bulge”.  Baby Boomers might not like it but they are a bulge.

I was listening to a commentator recently who was talking about the current economic crisis and the implications for the Baby Boomer generation.  He described them as the “bulge going through the snake”.  We’ve all heard variations of this theme.

I am not an official Baby Boomer.  I was born in 1943.  My claim to fame is that people born in my year of birth had the distinction of being born in the year of the lead penny.  Now there’s a positive image to latch on to.  All my life I’ve been told to “Get the lead out!”  We were natural born environmentalists and didn’t even know it!

As I listen to the ongoing national debate about our current financial dilemma, I recalled the “Age of Aquarius” and all the talk about Love, Peace and Equality in a flower-laden, Disney-like world.  In spite of all the war demonstrations at the time, there still was a prevailing sense of positive energy… Good was going to win and we would all prosper.  After all, we are the United States of America!

What happened?  It made me pause and think of what faces the Baby Boomers.  My original idea came from comparing the “Age of Aquarius” to the new age of “A-Wariness”… A wariness born out of reality.  It’s not going as envisioned in those days of positive thinking and our “leaders” (That’s what they call themselves!) seem to be on a different page.  Come to think of it, I don’t think we’re reading the same book!

My original intent was to make the cartoon funny… but, it’s not.  Neither are the issues we seem to be ignoring while they play the blame game in Washington.  We are entering an era of reality for millions of people that is too serious to trivialized by politics.

 “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius”… that had a nice ring to it.  “This is ending of the Age of Aquarius” doesn’t feel as good…  The real people get it.  Do you think it will ever dawn on our “leaders”?