It’s all about moving on

As we shiver our way into the new year, we here at NCBR are preparing a number of new publications, as well as new editions of old favorites. One that should be in readers’ mailboxes before the end of the first quarter is the annual Baby Boomers Retirement Guide, and, no, as much as some of us don’t want to admit it, that’s not an oxymoron. Even the trailing edge of our demographic cohort is going to be within panicking distance of half-a-century this year, and who doesn’t forget the day your invitation to join AARP arrived in the mail?

Preliminary research for story ideas keeps turning up the allegedly reassuring message that boomers are all about changing retirement as we know it. No more shuffleboard or bocce to fill our idle hours – we’ll be backpacking in Tanzania on our replacement knees, investing our vast accumulated wealth in startup companies, or volunteering in our communities. We’re all about second acts.

Unless we’re part of the 60 percent who haven’t saved squat during the first act, and are counting on what we inherit from our parents (assuming they don’t outlive the pensions we won’t be getting) to shop for food somewhere other than the cat-food aisle. Work ‘til you drop – that’s the typical boomer retirement plan. Even the esteemed Dick Lamm, who earned his nickname as Colorado’s Gov. Gloom in th 1980s for suggesting old people “have a duty to die and get out of the way,” seems to be perking right along in his 70s. And Chicago writer Studs Terkel, now 94, famously answered the rhetorical question, “Who would want to live to be 91 years old?” with: “Anyone who’s 90 now.”

Randy Newman, he of dark and trenchant song lyrics, closed his first set at the Lincoln Center in Fort Collins last night with a rousing anthem to musicians on 20-year-long farewell tours, including his 63-year-old self: “I’m Dead and I Don’t Know It.” So, we just keep rocking along, and don’t get out of the way.

The best we can do is hope we have the serenity to accept the wisdom we have and not chase the newest new hip thing when what we actually need is a new hip. The last time we went there it was all about investment bankers thinking there really was a New Economy – and didn’t the dot-bomb go off with an awfully loud bang?

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