There’s nothing like nostalgia. And when it’s by a boomer, and bittersweet, even better. That’s what this excerpt evokes. It’s from Boyd Lemon’s new book, “Retirement: A Memoir and Guide.”

I remember sitting in my beach chair a hundred steps from my front door, fine, cream-colored sand caressing the bottoms of my feet. My field of vision drifted from the stark silhouette of Anacapa to the purplish browns of Santa Cruz, two of the Channel Islands off the coast of California, 70 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

I was officially in the city of Oxnard, a place with an ugly name that fails to hint at this serene beauty, in a neighborhood that hadn’t been discovered by the hoards from Los Angeles. Serene as the scene was, and despite the loosening warmth of a half-imbibed gin martini in my right hand, I felt a tightness in the pit of my stomach, radiating up to my chest. I was almost 63 and thinking about retirement at some future time.

I visualized my father 40 years earlier, sitting in his forest green easy chair in the living room of my childhood home as I studied a book on torts during my first year of law school. The Los Angeles Herald Express, an evening paper that he had read six evenings a week since I could remember, was in his lap, still folded up.

Author and writer Boyd Lemon.

He stared into the space between him and the front window. After working for the Southern California Edison Company for 35 years, Dad had grudgingly retired at the mandatory age of 65. Three years later he had developed no new interests. Once in a while he went to the horse races at Santa Anita or the poker parlors in Gardena, as he had before retirement, but afterwards he didn’t have the income to go often. Mom had told me that she was worried about him. “He just mopes around the house,” she said.

A few days later I was in my bedroom putting on a clean shirt before leaving to visit my girlfriend. Dad’s bedroom door, across the hall from mine, was partly open. I saw him reach into his dresser drawer, pull out a whiskey bottle, unscrew the cap and take a long swallow. It was ten in the morning. I had never seen my father take one sip of an alcoholic beverage. I turned my head away. I didn’t want him to know that I saw, and I never told my mother. Less than a year later he died.

Boyd Lemon is online … click here.

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Imagine a future when thanks to genetic manipulations, you would look young all your life until you drop dead. A blessing or a curse?

Author Claude Nougat

This question has been haunting me for several years now — no doubt because, as so many boomers, I am facing my own aging and have to take care of my elderly mother who will be 100 years old this year.

She is doing remarkably well with her mind intact, she enjoys reading one new novel every week on her Kindle, butdaily life is not easy. What is routine to us is a chore for her. So I began to dream of a future where medical science had solved the problem of aging, saving us from the discomforts and diseases of the elderly.

It’s a safe bet that 200 years from now we’ll have a fully-functioning technology for staying young. And it is also likely that it will be tremendously expensive. With our current economic system, technical advances, even when they cost little to produce (like contact lenses or aspirin), reach the market at very high prices. And stay that wayeven when the cost of production has dropped dramatically. Because, so the Big Corporations tell us, of the need to finance research. Whatever the reason,this means that only the ultra-rich will have access to the benefits of scientific progress.

It means you will have a few people looking young all their lives while the rest of humanity continues to age visibly and suffer the indignities of old age. How will Society address such differences that will appear as inequities at best, as tragedies at worst?

This is the world that 2213:Forever Young, a serial novel explores. In Part One, I Will Not Leave You Behind, the main character, a beautiful 122-year-old woman who is a member of the Age Prevention Program and doesn’t look a day older than twenty, discovers she only has 12 hours to live. But she’s madly in love with a young and dashing ski instructor who doesn’t know how old she is because she never dared tell him, lest their love would vanish. What will she do now?

In Part Two, You Will Not Take My Place, the inequities resulting from the Age Prevention Program are further explored— in this case, a dramatic fight explodes as one member of the Program tries to pass on his place to the woman he loves at the expense of his own daughter, the rightful heir.

The book is listed by Amazon as “hard science fiction,” an accurate category for a tough, emotion-laden story based on a highly probable projection into the future of current trends in science and society.

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For your free copy of Part One, I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU BEHIND click here.
To get for just 99 cents Part Two, YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY PLACE click here.

Since it is a serial novel, each part may be read independently although it is preferable to read them in sequence. Each episode explores different facets of our future, in the vein of 1984, Clockwork Orange or WOOL, as a way to examine the issues we are facing today.

The post What if Boomers Were to Live Forever? Blessing or Curse? appeared first on BoomerCafé.com.

Harriet Shenkman’s mother.

She sang her siren-song
bent over the Singer,
knee at the metal lever.

She tried to hug me with
mother-daughter outfits,
flowered midriffs
and matching skirts,
princess-waist jumper,
velvet bow beneath the
bust, peach dress with
raised white polka dots,
Chinese-red sheath,
slits down each side.

I spurned her advances
for clothes off-the-rack
like the other girls had.

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We are the generation that doesn’t live by the calendar. Which is why we like what Gary Carter writes. The author of ELIOT’S TALE, Gary has a philosophy that matches ours: make the most out of life.

There’s a bumper sticker I’d probably seen many times before I actually paused and considered the sentiment. It says simply: Don’t Postpone Joy.

Writer Gary Carter

I assume for the twenty-somethings who see life stretched in front of them, perhaps propelled by a “live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse” attitude, this is a working philosophy. In fact, they probably can’t imagine why you would postpone joy, or maybe they’re too busy living to consider such a possibility may haunt them someday.

But for those of us well into our boomer years, that simple three-word phrase — Don’t Postpone Joy — may prompt some unsettling questions: did I postpone joy? If so, why?

For that matter, we may be driven to consider what, or who, constituted joy in our lives. Or what, or who, could have? Was there something we wanted to do or should have done, but postponed it because of other commitments or responsibilities? Or maybe the right opportunity didn’t present itself, or we simply failed to act and create that opportunity.

This is the kind of reflection on the past that many people shun, perhaps with goodreason. Maybe you believe the past is the past, it cannot be changed, and it’s better not to dwell on such matters. But even with that attitude, it’s hard to argue that the past hasn’t shaped your life in many ways and, even though technically it’s in the rear-view mirror, it may still have a profound impact on your daily existence.

The writer William Faulkner proclaimed, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Or you can fall back on T.S. Eliot who wrote in his Four Quartets, “Time past and time future/ What might have been and what has been/ Point to one end, which is always present.”

Putting aside the past, maybe we can now consider the wisdom of no longer postponing joy. It’s something quite consistent with the Buddhist admonition to live in the moment, since we cannot know when the end will come. That is an unalterable truth. It’s an approach that focuses you on the small things and makes you appreciate the unexpected, and find your own ways to create joy. Maybe it encourages you to undertake something you’ve always wanted to do or try or experience, but lacked the time or courage or means.

Here’s the cold, hard truth as offered by Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse in Australia who spent a number of years caring for patients and listening to their reflections. She collected what she heard into a book and gave it a title that pulls no punches: The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Number one on the list is, “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

See if that doesn’t slow you down and cause you to reflect on your existence.

For those of us still kicking, consider it a warning to consider your life, and your future— a great unknown. And the answer, so simple that it fits on a bumper sticker, is, “Don’t Postpone Joy.”

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When she was only in her 50s, baby boomer fashion designer Diane Gilman found herself newly-widowed, overweight, and in a slump. But not for long. Now in her 60s, Diane has sold more than seven million pairs of DG2 jeans, and is a fashion star on Home Shopping Network. How did she do it? Here’s an excerpt from her new book Good Jeans: 10 Simple Truths about Feeling Great, Staying Sexy & Aging Agelessly.

Fashion designer Diane Gilman, in her 60s.

“What’s your secret?” is a question I get a lot. Let me be perfectly clear — it’s not a secret. So let me share with all of you what I believe is the essence of living an AGE-LESS life.

And it’s not purely about feeling or looking younger. Human beings do not get younger. I promise you — this is a fact. Google it. You’re either aging, or you’re dead. But aging doesn’t have to mean inevitably going into decline, either. Inspired is not a decade. Healthy is not an age. Beautiful is not anumber. Curiosity, sexuality, mental and physical flexibility, optimism, daring to dream— none of these comes with term limits. The goal isn’t younger; the goal is to be the healthiest, happiest, most radiant human being you can be at any given moment.

That is the essence of aging AGE-LESS. Life begins at sixty!

When we make that shift — in both vocabulary and mindset — we breathe into being an entirely new vision of the second half of life. Every day is a movable feast of opportunity, every opportunity is primed with a wealth of experience, and every experience takes on a delicious piquancy, a preciousness that we were just too damn dumb to see or feel when we were in our twenties.

Through the call-in segments on my television shows and my Huffington Post blog, I constantly hear from women who are longing for mind-expanding work, earth-moving love, foundation-rocking sex, and soul-grabbing purpose.They’ve been taught to believe that those ships have sailed. But I believe women can unlearn these negative messages and embrace a new way of thinking.

So many of us lose the essence of who we are when we reach the transitional period called middle age. Suddenly, our body, face, energy level, libido — everything that adds up to our sense of female self — aren’t us anymore. We look in the mirror and see a stranger.

Diane Gilman

Worst of all, we blame ourselves. So many of us women step into the fitting room at a store that caters to twenty-somethings, and when the jeans don’t fit, we don’t see the jeans wrong, we see ourselves wrong.

Quite frankly, this is bull. The reality is (hope you’re sitting down for this), before menopause, women age only half as fast as men. Afterwards, they age five times faster. What’s to feel guilty about there? That’s science, genetics, Mother Nature — not a lack of willpower or some kind of deep personal failing. So stop beating yourself up about the passage of time. Work with it instead.

Exactly like a perfect pair of jeans, we’ve reached just the right fade. We speak that universal language: class, grace, experience. A twenty-five-year-old woman has plenty of assets we don’t have, but she can’t fake, buy, implant, or paint on wisdom, personal style, and richness of character. It takes decades to create what we’ve got. But it takes focus and effort to make the most of it. To enjoy it! To use it to our advantage. And to share it.

Excerpt reprinted with permission from GOOD JEANS © 2013 by Diane Gilman, Running Press, a member of the Perseus Book Group.

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Feeling out of it because you’re not on Twitter or Facebook and don’t even know what Social Media means? You’re not alone … or at least, you weren’t. Richard Parise has written a fun book to which you might relate. It’s called, quite simply, My Husband’s On Facebook!. It’s a satire about baby boomers venturing into this dark new world.

A sunny morning … The birds are singing … My husband’s gone out … A new day on Facebook.  What more can a body ask? So many posts to read. So many comments to make. Where shall I begin?

Richard Parise

I must not forget that my mother friended Father Santino. That really crimps my style. Mother loves to share my posts. Going to have to toss a lot of my best adjectives into the recycle bin. Oh well, I’ll just have to make due until I can sneak over to her computer and unfriend him. I’ll just tell her he went on a retreat to the Holy Land.

Not another new friend request. This girl’s getting popular. Amy Kelly wants to be my friend. She’s my daughter’s hairdresser. Hmm… Think she’s just looking for a new customer? Guess I’ll have to friend her otherwise the next time Katy goes to get a perm she’ll come out looking like Harpo Marx.

Oh my God! Dean Phillips just put his picture up with his post. He’s been using a photo of his Bull Dog. Or is that still his Bull Dog? No, that’s Dean. The poor guy’s just getting old like the rest of us. I guess some of us age gracefully and the rest of us ripen like a month old pomegranate.

I hate the thought of switching over to the new Facebook timeline. I was just getting use to all the bells and whistles in the old Facebook. Don’t these people know that everyone here is not a geek? Confuse us over fifty crowd and we just as soon DELETE YOUR A //! Sorry Father.

Online social media.

My husband tried to talk me into going to spring training in Florida with Al and Janet Kaminski. Like I want to stand next to a fence watching grown men toss baseballs back and forth. For ten years I’ve been trying to get him to take me on a cruise.

Always an excuse. “We don’t have the money.” “Terrorists are plotting to blow them up.” “Did you forget about the Titanic?” I can’t believe this same guy is a member of the N.R.A. Hey you know, I’ll bet you he’d make a good pet detective.

I sent out a friend request to Molly Freeman. She was my best friend growing up until she moved to Texas. It was devastating. We were only ten at the time. I remember crying for days after that. Could be why I’m an emotional wreck every time my daughter posts a picture of a homeless puppy. If I wasn’t living with Charlie, I’d probably have a houseful of stray dogs and cats moping about. Hmm …

Getting back to Molly, her name popped up as a friend of my friend Jill’s secretary. Jill owns a local real estate firm. Seems that Jill’s secretary is Molly’s cousin. Small world. I’m kind of nervous waiting to hear from her. Some people don’t like to rekindle old friendships. They’re afraid they may not have been as successful in life. Personally, I’m not judgmental. I just like to correspond and wish them well. Life’s too short for jealousy. If I’m not good enough for them, they can unfriend me and I could care less.

Just don’t let me run into them when I’m on my way to the shooting range.

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One thing increasingly common to baby boomers is, if we haven’t lost our parents yet, we probably will soon. Lynn Cook Henriksen has found a profound way to remember our parents long after they’re gone. That’s why she calls herself The Story Woman and why her book is called, TellTale Souls Writing the Mother Memoir.  It’s about tapping our memories, and writing them down.

“If you could tell just one small story that would capture your mother’s character and keep her spirit alive into the future, what would it be?”

Writer Lynn Cook Henriksen

This is the seminal question I asked people more than a decade ago after my mother died. I began what I now recognize as a spiritual journey, inspiring women and men from all walks of life to write the Mother Memoir.

I was filled with a burning desire to guide them to that tender spot deep inside themselves to locate striking memories and then to show them how they could move even the hint of fragrance, the turn of a phrase, the hum of a tune, the flash of an eye, the back of a hand, or a fragment of family ritual, temporarily eclipsed in memory, into successful and unforgettable short, true tales. The Mother Memoir has the power to move people and change awareness.

An initial shift in my awareness actually summoned my pioneering effort into this place of treasure. In company with countless daughters and sons, I witnessed with great sadness, pain, and mounting disbelief the ravages of mental deterioration as my mother’s ever creeping inability to recognize me became irrevocable. How could this be? I was with her 24/7 during her last three years; how could she not know me? A tragical shift, yes. A sharp-edged turn that took with it my being known by my mother while she lived, but also one that moved tragedy through inspiration to a source of satisfaction that would keep her spirit and hosts of spirits alive for years to come.

There inevitably comes a time when it is too late for each of us to ask Mom how she would describe the spirit of her mother— always a tough lesson to learn. I feel a personal loss and regret because I no longer have the luxury to elicit stories from my mother about anyone who held a significant place in her heart, those who were connected to her soul. I hope you won’t wait until it is too late to coax stories out of family members and to write your personal Mother Memoir, so future generations reading your words will catch a glimpse of your mother’s character and spirit.

Think of yourself as a TellTale Soul when you tap memory and write a story, a bio-vignette, of just a few pages—800 to 1600 words. Powerful images and unique insights will make themselves known to you when you consider deeply the memories that will be revealed as you look for the essence of your mother, or anyone significant in your life, and illuminate her or his character through a true story, as no photograph could ever do.

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After I got past the worst of my own midlife mayhem — the divorce, job loss, and whatever else the world could throw at me — I slowly realized that I was going to survive. This left me wondering, what are the known facts about boomers and midlife? What could the data tell me that might validate my own experience?

Writer Laura Lee Carter and friend.

As an academic librarian and lifelong learner born precisely in the middle of theAmerican baby boom, I decided to dig through everything from sociological and psychological research to history and literature. I was seeking a wider understanding of the mysterious psychological transition brought on by the full awarenessthat you are now in the middle of life.

The first thing I discovered was that there is no other time in life that has generated more misinformation than midlife. The second is, I am most certainly NOT ALONE, but instead on the cutting edge of a revolution in psychological development.

After years of research, I found that midlife is in fact a distinct psychological stage in adult development which generally is experienced between the ages of 40 and 60, a normal and predictable transitional period where we have the opportunity to stop and consider what’s next. Prominent psychologists have been noticing for years a distinct period in the middle of life, when our priorities change and we find the need to re-define our own meaning and purpose. Interestingly, psychologists like Carl Jung and Erik Erikson did not realize how momentousthis change was until they experienced it themselves.

For the first time in human history, we have a long enough lifespan to transition from the limiting beliefs of our early adulthood, learn about new stages of human development previously unavailable, and embrace our full potential and power as we take responsibility for the full range of choices before us. These opportunities are especially new for women, who historically have been ignored or marginalized when it came to attaining higher levels of education, psychological development, and consciousness.

Sadly, far too many of us are damaged or destroyed while trying to negotiate this sometimes difficult life transition. Because of rampant misinformation, this natural rite of passage is too often spent feeling alone, confused, misunderstood, and marginalized, when it should instead be a time to celebrate coming into our own power, and embracing what is unique within us.

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Late last year, BoomerCafé published a piece by Claude Nougat, who predicted that baby boomer literature — in which we are at the heart of the story — would be the Next Big Genre. Well, check out her Goodreads Group and you’ll see, she was right. And now she has another novel out there herself: A Hook in the Sky. It’s the story of a retiree-turned-artist … to the dismay of his much younger wife, but to the delight of his own mother, who is unhappy only about the wife’s less-than-enthusiastic embrace of her husband’s choice.

Author Claude Nougat

“This is very serious, Robert. I’m your mother, remember? I can see what’s happening to your marriage. You’re allowing your wife to convince you that what you do is worthless.”

“Nonsense. Kay’s tastes are different from yours and mine. That’s all.”

“Oh, but it’s not just a matter of taste! The problems between you run much deeper than that! I’m an old woman, I have experience. I see what I see…”

“In that case, just keep your eyes shut, will you?”

“Robert, don’t get mad at me. I’m not the problem, your wife is! And you know it.”

“Maman, there is one thing I do know: you wanted to have grandchildren and we have disappointed you on that score. But that’s no reason to take it out on Kay! It’s not her fault!”

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t be so certain. No one in our family has ever been sterile. The problem could easily be on her side! After all, she’s an only child.”

“So am I! It doesn’t mean anything. Just stop it.”

Her eyes widened as if she wanted to convey something important and didn’t know how. Then she did something very theatrical. She plunged to the floor,taking hold of his ankle. Crouching at his feet, she held his leg in both hands. “Now, try walking!” She said.

“What do you mean?”

“Try walking, I tell you! Come on, push that leg forward!”

He didn’t try hard, not wanting to hurt her, but he felt his leg straining against her hands.

“See? You’re slowed down! You can’t walk. That’s what Kay does to you!”

The next day she flew back to Paris.

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We have a baby boomer comeback story to share with you. It’s by Chris Vaca, who found himself in his fifties, and broke. But that didn’t stop him from moving on. His personal motto is the title of his newest book: “Age Should Never Be An Excuse For Not Succeeding.” And there’s more.

So there I was, a 56-year-old owner of a successful mortgage business. Life was good, I was making nice money and the future looked bright when all of a sudden, WHAM, I woke up one day to the housing meltdown and this great recession we are still in. Life got pretty rough after that, going from doing six loans a month to five loans a year.

Chris Vaca

It was devastating on my finances, as you can well imagine. However, I was keeping the business together as best I could, living on Ramon Noodles and using what savings I had to stay afloat. My main goal was to keep the business going until the economy came back, which as you know never fully happened. Everything that I worked for was no more.

What made matters worse was that I used all my savings trying to keep the business going, along with maxing out my credit cards. Therefore, I could no longer pay the rent, and I was evicted from my apartment. On top of that, I also had my car repossessed. Could it get any worse? Read on.

So then, there Iwas, 58-years-old, no place to live, no business, no job, no income, no money, no nothing. Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly the high point of my life. What do I do next? Well, I did something I never thought I would do, and really did not want to do.

But I was left with little choice. I put my tail between my legs and called my ex-wife (how humiliating do you think that was?). Fortunately, we were always on friendly terms, and she said I could stay with her until I got back on my feet. I’ll tell you, I remember that day like it was yesterday. There I am, standing at my ex-wife’s front door, head bowed and bags in hand; I felt just like a whipped puppy. It was without a doubt probably the lowest point in my life. I cannot even explain the feelings I had, but they were not very goodfeelings, I can tell you that.

Losing everything at the age of 30 is bad, but when you are 58, so close to retirement, it is a hundred times worse. After the hurt of losing everything, along with the pain, the anger, the humiliation, and the fear, I realized I needed to stand up and get myself out of the hole I was in, because no one was going to do it for me.

Now, at age 60, I am an entrepreneur, public speaker, trainer, and author of four books. I also have a series of videos on YouTube called Over 50 And Broke and a website with the same name. Like the slogan says, age should never be an excuse for not succeeding.

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