Carefree Childhood – Life Was Good

I spent my childhood in a small town of around 1,000 persons. Summer days were idyllic. Riding bikes all over, playing, or lying around. Collecting soda bottles, cashing them in for 2c each, taking the 25 or 30c to the variety store. Buying a comic book, bottle of pop (soda), bubble gum, and chips. Heading for the nearest large shade tree. Reading comic books and dining with good friends for hours.

Climbing trees in vacant lots. Making forts in the upper branches of large leafy trees. Life was good.

Serial killers, perverts, pedophiles? Who the heck heard of those in the 1950’s. Carefree was the byword in those days. We knew what time to go home in for lunch or supper. My friends and I policed ourselves. The freedom we had amazes me to this day.  No wonder we didn’t want to grow up and take responsibility.

Empty Nesters – Get a Monkey Baby

Rhesus monkey - your next child?

Last evening on “The Learning Channel” (TLC) they had a show about people who adopt Rhesus monkeys and raise them and treat them as if they were human children. One man’s quote floored me, “Don’t call her a monkey, she’s my daughter”!

Seems most of the people doing this are empter nesters, those whose children have grown up and left home. They just couldn’t get enough of bottles and diapers so now having these monkeys gives them that forever.

One couple tried to take theirs into a restaurant and were denied access, they didn’t allow animals into the establishment.

So for all you empty nesters out there looking to carry on nurturing adopt one. They cost $4500 and if you get tired of it, send it to a zoo.

My Name is Steve and I am a Boomer

I am a baby boomer. There I’m out of the closet now. Not only that but I’m proud that I am a “boomer”. Many of you reading this will say, “What is a baby boomer?”

Well here is the simple and basic explanation. When the Second World War ended in late 1945 the soldiers, airmen, and sailors started coming home. These were people who had not seen loved ones in some cases for years. They wanted to get back to normal, start working, make love, and make babies. Hell there is no other way to put this – they were horny!

Above: famous photo of celebration at end of WW II, “The Kiss”.

The result was that starting in 1946 there was a baby boom in both Canada and the United States. It was a virtual manufacturing industry. Babies and more babies, babies everywhere. The boom continued into the early 1960s, when along came the birth control pill. This technology coincided nicely with the fact that by then most of the returnees had produced families and had jobs. Life was good, except they had to find a way to stop having more babies, or at least slow down, so that the number of mouths to feed was limited.

Today in Canada and the United States the largest segment of the population are the baby boomers. Like me most of them are now over 50 and getting ready to retire in the near future. The result will be a shortage of experience, skilled workers in the workforce. On the plus side this will provide many opportunities for younger workers, on the negative side employers will be scrambling to replace the knowledge lost.

Statistics Canada data shows that just over 15% of Canadian workers are 55 or older and close to retirement. It also shows that for the first time there are just as many workers over age 40 as under.

The other area of society impacted will be the health care system. As the boomer generation ages, their large numbers will create a major stress on health care providers.

Boomers are often criticized for wanting to retire and enjoy our golden years. Younger society is dreading the costs of health care and other services that boomers will be accessing. The cost to society will be great.

To critics I say this, the majority of boomers have worked productively for over 40 years, paid taxes, contributed to pension plans, and given in time and money to society. In my case I have been employed full-time for almost 40 years and have never collected unemployment or welfare in all those years. We boomers have earned our retirement and the health care that we will surely need.

First Boomer Collects Social Security

Kathy Casey-Kirschling became the first U.S. baby boomer to collect Social Security on February 13, 2008. She is the vanguard of 80 million other baby boomers in the United States. Canada also has the same large group of these post-WW II babies.

The challenge will be to the health care system and the government pension plans. Will the plans be adequate to look after the needs of this large group of citizens?

Baby boomers have worked hard for the last forty years or more and now are at or nearing retirement age. I am in that group at age 58. In 2009 I will worked full-time for 40 years. I think in all that time I was unemployed involuntarily for about two weeks.

I have a message for the young people of today. Save for your retirement early, even if it is just small amounts to start. The last 40 years have flown by for me, they will for you too. We aren’t here for a long time. To have a good time including in your later years start planning early.

Co-incidently Kathy was born one second after midnight January 1, 1946 and is officially considered the first baby boomer to be born. She retired at age 60 and has been giving back to the community through volunteer work.