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Ask a boomer anything
- Thread starter slobake
- Start date
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
No. "May I please have your finest tube stake, thank you very much." Especially if you are asking a boomer.
Slobake:- Has everyone on Talkbass reached their full potential yet?
Can you suggest a 'motto" to repeat everyday to help with this?
Can you suggest a 'motto" to repeat everyday to help with this?
That explains my feelings well...
The main vibe I get when I think of the times you boomers would have grown up in is just that of change, emotion, meaning. The movements actually meant something and weren't made just so some attention hungry person could 'share' their good deeds with everyone. "Look at me! I'm not a jackass!" Those days just seemed so much more genuine and real. Too many people these days are obsessed with meaningless stuff. Back then, if you wanted to do something, you had to go out and do it! Now today the way people be involved in something is by 'liking' or 'sharing' other people's work that are actually doing something. Of course, not everyone is like that...but I'd reckon a whole lot of my generation don't form many opinions of their own. Its just whatever is popular is what your supposed to get behind.
Eh, a little ranty...but I was born too late.
That explains my feelings well...
The main vibe I get when I think of the times you boomers would have grown up in is just that of change, emotion, meaning. The movements actually meant something and weren't made just so some attention hungry person could 'share' their good deeds with everyone. "Look at me! I'm not a jackass!" Those days just seemed so much more genuine and real. Too many people these days are obsessed with meaningless stuff. Back then, if you wanted to do something, you had to go out and do it! Now today the way people be involved in something is by 'liking' or 'sharing' other people's work that are actually doing something. Of course, not everyone is like that...but I'd reckon a whole lot of my generation don't form many opinions of their own. Its just whatever is popular is what your supposed to get behind.
Eh, a little ranty...but I was born too late.
I think you're being too hard on yourself. There are plenty of your generation marching for change, less often and sometimes in smaller numbers, but they are there; and often without violence too. (occupy wall st., black lives matter as a couple of examples)
You can affect change in lots of ways, it was said that all politics is local, there are people in your own community that are in need, start there and see how it can change peoples lives right where you live.
I myself wasn't born until the summer of Love My dad was overseas on his second Tour of 'Nam and got home just in time to drive my mom 30+ miles to the rural west Texas hospital in their 67 Dodge Charger followed by several police cars..lol
I was born in 1950, 5 years after the end of WWII and just at the time TV was becoming available across the country. I remember hearing that Eisenhower was president, and I grew up watching the 1950's westerns on TV. LOVED ALL OF THEM. Many here would not believe what a dominant format that was for a decade.
But my favorite show? Sea Hunt. Lloyd Bridges wore a triangular mask with a built-in regulator for a few seconds in the show opening, and i watched every episode looking for him to use that mask. Never saw it, but that show made me vow to learn to scuba dive.
Toys? Every toy gun you can think of, but the Cadillacs for western fans were Fanner 50's with the plastic-tip bullets that could be set up with caps to make a opo when they were fired. There's a picture of me somewhere in my Lone Ranger outfit, and I remember jumping off dirt mounds in the back yard wearing blue long johns and a red superman cape.
Used to be that the Sears and JC Penney Christmas catalogs were 200-300 pages thick, and I wore out the sections with toy guns flipping through them again and again, every year.
But my favorite show? Sea Hunt. Lloyd Bridges wore a triangular mask with a built-in regulator for a few seconds in the show opening, and i watched every episode looking for him to use that mask. Never saw it, but that show made me vow to learn to scuba dive.
Toys? Every toy gun you can think of, but the Cadillacs for western fans were Fanner 50's with the plastic-tip bullets that could be set up with caps to make a opo when they were fired. There's a picture of me somewhere in my Lone Ranger outfit, and I remember jumping off dirt mounds in the back yard wearing blue long johns and a red superman cape.
Used to be that the Sears and JC Penney Christmas catalogs were 200-300 pages thick, and I wore out the sections with toy guns flipping through them again and again, every year.
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Hey, I've got serious a boomer question.
How do boomers view retirement? They say 60 is the new 50 so a lot of retired people are extremely active these days. But also, the social net isn't really there for you the way they said it would be. Are you guys worried about supporting yourself or are you excited about transitioning from the working world? I know it's hard to generalize for your whole generation, but maybe you can.
How do boomers view retirement? They say 60 is the new 50 so a lot of retired people are extremely active these days. But also, the social net isn't really there for you the way they said it would be. Are you guys worried about supporting yourself or are you excited about transitioning from the working world? I know it's hard to generalize for your whole generation, but maybe you can.
When I was younger I really was looking forward to retirement, now that I am close I am really in no hurry to get there. I would miss the people I work with some I think, and the challenges of my job. I think you know when you are ready, and I am just not there yet. I am sure at some point I will be, just not yet.
I retired 5½ years ago and it took me a couple years to get used to it. At first, there was so much to do, I wondered how I got it all done when I was working. Then things mellowed out and I started focusing more on music, ending up in the two bands I'm in now (I was in bands the last 15 years of my career.) Also, I have a teenage daughter who plays softball, and it's cool that I can make every game (except one - and, of course, that was the one in which she hit a home run). Nowadays I also hang out at BSD a lot. Chris charges my wife $200 a month to let me hang out there. I try to pay it off with contract work.
As far as supporting myself, I have sufficient income, but a word to the wise for all generations: don't depend on Social Security for any meaningful support. It ain't that much and, in my case, since I have two dependents under the age of 62, most of my Social Security benefits go to paying for ... you guessed it ... Obamacare.
Listen to the CSN song "Wasted on the Way" and heed the admonitions therein. You younger folks should put away as much money as you possibly can. Max out your 401K contributions (if you have one). If not, open an IRA and put money in it 'til it hurts. If you start that early enough, you may have enough money to retire when you reach Social Security age. Note: I did not do that, but I got lucky.
For reference:
Wasted on the Way
Look around me
I can see my life before me
Running rings around the way it used to be
I am older now
I have more than what I wanted
But I wish that I had started long before I did
And there's so much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way
So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away
Oh, when you were young
Did you question all the answers
Did you envy all the dancers who had all the nerve
Look around you know
You must go for what you wanted
Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved
So much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way
So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away
So much love to make up everywhere you turn
Love we have wasted on the way
So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away
Let the water come and carry us away
I turned 65 in June and at the same time, finished setting up a deal to continue my work for another couple of years. I have a unique skill set at my university, and we just added a second small unit to my supervisory role. I have been at Land-Grant Universities in some variation of media production for 35 years, and after 17 years here, I was positioned to put the units together and get them working. Frankly, I also have the idea and vision the university needs to take its next steps in digital and online classroom technology.
I'm not concerned about taking up space, as there is no one here clearly qualified to take my place; when I retire we'll open it up and make sure to recruit widely from outside. I know of one 30-something candidate, but he's in North Carolina and he needs to inherit units that work together, not people that are still getting used to the idea of coordinating with each other. When I retire he'll be a good candidate, although he doesn't have a PhD, and that's helpful when dealing with university administrators.
The fact is that in media, there are many of us grey-haired types who built expertise in analog media, and have since then transferred it into digital hardware and media. That gives us a pretty broad view of technology. There have been a number of people who retired at my university, then were hired back part-time because no one knew what they knew. The gent who designed and installed our campus cable TV distribution system was one. It took years before we could replace that system and someone had to keep it going.
How do I VIEW retirement? Tougher question. I have thought about it in passing for years, but not as something that I can't wait to do; more as an approaching fact of life. I don't have anything in mind that I "must do," and I'm not unhappy with what I'm doing. In fact, I'm pretty interested in what I can achieve in the next couple of years. So...I'm sticking around for a bit, and if I decide I'm done with it, I can bow out.
As much as anything, I'm considering what I want to do with my time. I may consult, I may decide to put much more time into music. I am fully aware that it's the guys who say "I'm going fishing" after retirement who spend a couple of years on the porch, then disappear. I'm going to be more active than that!
I don't know if that's a good answer, but it's accurate. I frankly think that many boomers are used to being productive and doing interesting things, and they don't see retirement as a time to go fishing.
I'm not concerned about taking up space, as there is no one here clearly qualified to take my place; when I retire we'll open it up and make sure to recruit widely from outside. I know of one 30-something candidate, but he's in North Carolina and he needs to inherit units that work together, not people that are still getting used to the idea of coordinating with each other. When I retire he'll be a good candidate, although he doesn't have a PhD, and that's helpful when dealing with university administrators.
The fact is that in media, there are many of us grey-haired types who built expertise in analog media, and have since then transferred it into digital hardware and media. That gives us a pretty broad view of technology. There have been a number of people who retired at my university, then were hired back part-time because no one knew what they knew. The gent who designed and installed our campus cable TV distribution system was one. It took years before we could replace that system and someone had to keep it going.
How do I VIEW retirement? Tougher question. I have thought about it in passing for years, but not as something that I can't wait to do; more as an approaching fact of life. I don't have anything in mind that I "must do," and I'm not unhappy with what I'm doing. In fact, I'm pretty interested in what I can achieve in the next couple of years. So...I'm sticking around for a bit, and if I decide I'm done with it, I can bow out.
As much as anything, I'm considering what I want to do with my time. I may consult, I may decide to put much more time into music. I am fully aware that it's the guys who say "I'm going fishing" after retirement who spend a couple of years on the porch, then disappear. I'm going to be more active than that!
I don't know if that's a good answer, but it's accurate. I frankly think that many boomers are used to being productive and doing interesting things, and they don't see retirement as a time to go fishing.
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