Katie B. Goode

Katie B. Goode is a wise boomer woman…wise enough to finally understand that she’s not wise now and may never be. Oh well. Many of us probably could use the same lesson. You think age brings wisdom? Katie’s answer: Hah!

No matter how lousy life was at any given moment, I always had the hope and promise of one thing — that someday, when I was older, I would become wise.

Yes, I would be a wise woman loved and admired by all. A sultanette of sagacity whose devoted children would come to her for advice and direction, whose grandchildren would revere her as the family elder and source of all that was perspicacious.

Hah! It didn’t work out that way. So finally I had to face it. Some of us were born with the fool gene and we’re going to die that way.

In my earlier years, I truly thought that wisdom would come with age. That theory was squashed like a mosquito on the screen door of life when I worked as a feature writer at a daily newspaper in California. I was in the middle of one of those shining periods of my life when I discovered that the ultra-charming NASA rocket scientist I was engaged to was a psycho. A real marry-‘em-and-abuse-‘em-and-even-been-hospitalized paranoid schizophrenic. How had I not seen it, I wondered?

After I escaped with my life, I wondered how had I made wrong decision after wrong decision? And what could I do to change things?

“Aha! I will seek wisdom from my elders.”

So off I went, reporter’s notebook in hand, to local nursing homes, fervently seeking enlightenment from those who had lived a respectable span of years.

“What have you learned about life?” I asked my elders, metaphorically sitting at their feet.

They said:

• “I learned I don’t want to be old.”
• “Men are worthless.”
• “Mildred’s a farty old lady.”
• “Hey, baby… come to papa.”
• “Children are ingrates.”
• “You seen my teeth, honey?”

Argh! This wasn’t what I’d expected at all. Where was the sage counsel, the luscious philosophical plums, the astounding acumen that would change my life forever?

I wanted to walk away with pearls of wisdom that I could string into a necklace of brilliant insights to pluck as needed. Instead, I learned that although gas may increase with age, wisdom is not a natural byproduct. Some of us are born with wisdom, some of us achieve wisdom, and some of us have no hope.

But I’ll keep on trying. I’ll keep listening, reading, seeking, meditating, and messing up trying to hop aboard that wisdom train. Maybe someday, if I chase down the tracks long enough, I’ll eventually catch a ride … nah!

Keep track of Katie on her blog. Click here.

I’m starting a campaign against the common handshake.

And it’s overdue.

One report I saw says that cold germs live on hands for hours. The silly custom of shaking hands costs us $46 billion a year in health costs, and who knows how many missed work days… or mornings on the golf course.

Not only colds, but flu and who knows what other maladies are passed on through this disgusting way of greeting friend…business associate… and even foe. It’s now considered impolite not to offer a handshake.

Woman to woman.

Woman to man.

Man to man.

Man to woman.

As a young Boomerette, in more genteel times, I was taught that a gentleman waited for a lady to extend her hand before extending his. The woman made the decision whether or not to shake hands.

Now, his hand goes popping out like a glad-handing used car salesman and you’re forced to reciprocate. Most of the time, it’s fine. But sometimes it’s a bone-crushing, knuckle-crunching shake from a guy who probably didn’t even wash his hands after using the bathroom (something like 110%, I read somewhere).

Why on earth would I want to shake hands with potty man?

Then, there’s the guy who just won’t let go. Who turns a simple handshake into a handholding marathon. What’dya do? It’s not easy to be subtle when you’re trying to escape the clutches of a guy who has you in a death grip. The kind of guy who makes you wish you had a black belt.

And I won’t even mention Mr. Sweaty Palm. Ugh.

Why can’t we be like the Asian countries, or at least how they used to be before they were corrupted by our western way of greeting? Why can’t we merely nod or bow?

In Nepal, they put hands together and say, “Namaste,” which roughly translated means “I salute the god within you.”

In the old West, a gentleman tipped his hat to a lady. That’s nice, too. But I guess a ball cap’s kind of hard to tip.

Aren’t these greetings more civilized, less arrogant, healthier, than slipping your germs onto some unsuspecting person’s person to pass on to yet another and another…

It’s not just in social or business situations either.

There’s nothing worse than being in a hospital room or medical office and having the doctor come in and insist on shaking hands. And you wonder… did he wash first? One study says fifty percent of them don’t!. And is it true his patient in the room next door has a staph infection?

100,000 Americans a year die in hospitals because of the passing along of staph infections and other medical blunders.

I’m going to die for a handshake?

It’s a dumb, dumb tradition, that some say started in old times to prove that your hand was weapon-free.

Now our hands have turned into the ultimate bio-chemical weapon.

And it’s not only sharing germs that’s a worry. Some of us boomers have hands that have done a lot of work over the years and may be ready for retirement. My shaking hand has a painful thumb, a deformed pinkie, and leftover tenderness from a disease that’s most common in middle-aged Swedish men.

Other than that, I’m perfect.

So let’s start a movement to do away with the handshake. You can bow, kneel, nod, tip your hat, or smile. I’ll even take a hug. But please don’t shake my hand.

Feeling a little like an old jalopy while the sports cars pass you by? Katie B. Goode has figured out how to cope: Break Down, but Live It Up.

All equipment rusts, breaks down, and eventually gets sent to the junkyard and parted out.

Guess what. We boomers are no different.

If you’re one, you may have noticed that basic maintenance isn’t as easy as it used to be.

In the old days, we’d crank up the machinery and race from zero to 60 in nothing flat. We’d tank up on a little fuel, cruise all day and night, and rock and roll forever without so much as a tune-up.

These days, start it up and the engine skips and groans and sputters. We may make it out of the garage, but we just don’t have the same pep as in the old days.

We’ve got sludge in our crankcase and leaks in our valves. We’ve got creaks in our chassis and squeaks in our seats. We’ve got rust on our bumpers and dings on our dash.

Yep, we’re coming down the final stretch. There’s not much to do but sit back and enjoy the ride … as long as it lasts anyway.

It used to be that going to the body mechanic was something you did grudgingly for your company’s annual physical. Now we wonder if we should move closer to our doctor’s office so we can save on gas.

But even if you’re not the slick roadster you used to be, there’re bound to be a few more highways, byways, and pit stops that make you forget you didn’t just fall off the assembly line.

And if you’re lucky, you’ve got a partner—old or new—to share it all with. Rolling down the road together makes you almost forget about all the rubber on the road behind you. That’s especially true when you’re with someone who still sees you as that shiny speedster he fell in love with.

And if you’re very lucky, magic happens. Somewhere along the line you go from being an old heap to a cool classic. Celebrate!

Get out the turtle wax and give yourself a fresh shine. Cover your seats. Buff your trunk.

Travel those extra miles with pride because you know what’s coming—the big junkyard in the sky; the scrap pile of eternity; the four flats of forever.

But maybe there’s hope. Pray the manufacturer has a recycling program. You may have been a rusty Ford this time around, but who knows? Maybe next time you’ll be a red hot Ferrari!

For now though … just keep on rolling.

- Check out Katie’s new blog, The Barefoot Boomer -

“M’am?”

The hackles on my neck—who knew I had hackles? —sprang like knives ready to fend off all attackers.

“M’am, plastic or paper?”

My head spun to the rear, hoping there was an older woman lurking behind me who could take the hit. Really older.

No one.

I snapped back and stared at the kid for a moment, still wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt. “M’am?” the bag boy repeated.

You talking to me? You talking to ME?”, I thought, mentally lifting the kid up against the store window by his collar.

“How do you plead?” the judge asks.

“Not guilty, Your Honor. He called me ‘m’am’.”

A gasp in the courtroom. The judge shakes his head in shock and pounds his gavel. “Case dismissed,” he says. And I leave the courtroom, free, but forever scarred.

M’am. Just three little letters. Innocuous. Some might even think the kid was being respectful. But we know, boomer babes, we know.

I still have nightmares about that day. Being called “m’am” was just the first barb in that briar patch of aging. That morass of lost youth. That abyss of decay. It’s the first time the world recognized I was getting old.

But not the last.

First the “m’am” appellation, then my AARP card. A.A.R.P.—(Another Ancient Retro Prune) on my big 5-0 birthday. It was the beginning of the end.

Oh, it’s not that I mind getting old. I just don’t like other people treating me like I’m old.

You notice it in how people, younger people, look at you—or don’t look at you at all. It’s more like they just look through you, like you’re not even worth taking note of. You used to be tall or short, cute or pretty or handsome. Now you’re just generic. A generic pre-geriatric Boomer. Hardly worth a glance.

Is it your imagination or all of a sudden are you not as bright, not as capable, not as fun, not as interesting? Your grown child visits you in the hospital after a minor surgery and the doctor addresses him instead of you.

Hel-lo … I’m here and I’m lucid and I’m not even drooling, doctor.

But it’s not just medical concerns. Even if we’re at the top of our games in our careers, the younger stallions look at us and know… we’re on our way down and out. Move over, granny, it’s my turn now.

And they’re right. Although we may have a few good laps left, it’s getting close to pasture time. In fact, that tall grass is looking pretty good about now. Just don’t call me m’am.