A 50th Anniversary

Alan Shepard

Yesterday was the fifth of May, 2011.  It was Cinco de Mayo.  Recently in this country there has been an effort to turn the commemoration of the Battle of Pueblo into some kind of Mexican St. Patrick’s Day.  This movement has been led by the restaurant and alcoholic beverage industry.  It has always been kind of humorous to me because so many believe that the 5h of May is Mexican Independence Day.  it is not.  Mexican Independence Day is September 16, 1810.  The Battle of Puebla was on May 5, 1862 was when the Mexican defeated the French who had been occupying their country for a number of years.  I was actually kind of happy to have noticed much hype about Cinco de Mayo festivities yesterday. 

Early in the morning I happened to read the This Day in History email from History.com.  Their lead story for the day was Cinco de Mayo but another historical event.  It was the 50th Anniversary of Alan Shephard’s flight into space.  On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard was the first American to fly into space.  He was launched into space in the one man Mercury capsule named Freedom 7 which sat atop a Redstone missle.  His slight into space was only five minutes long.  

Shepard was indeed the first American in space.  It was a big deal and it was a big deal for me.  I was all of nine years old and just finishing the 4th grade at Robert Burns Elementary School in Detroit, MI.   It was a big day at our school.  Miss MacDonald had a television brought into our homeroom and we watched it all on that eventful Friday morning.   I was fascinated by the prospect of the launch and the flight.  I was very interested in the Space Program..  I was pretty sure after the first few Mercury flights that I wanted to be an astronaut.

Freedom 7 Launch

I remember how long and tedious the lead-up to the launch was.  I had no clue as to the complexities involved and that all the components and conditions had to be just so.  The countdown was suspended a few times with the last being T-15 minutes.   It seemed like forever but finally the countdown from ten, like in all the movies, began.  At 9:35 am, the missile roared to life and propelled Alan Shepard and my spirits up and away.  The whole flight lasted only 15 minutes and 28 seconds from launch to splashdown.   He did not even orbit the earth.  He went up 116 statute miles and hit a velocity of over 5,000 mph.  It was exciting and it was quick.
Alan Shepard ((November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was the first American in space but he was the second man in space.  The first , of course, was the Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (March 9, 1934 - March 27, 1968).  Gagarin went up on April 12, 1961 beating the Americans by 23 days.  His orbital flight was over one hour long.  Gagarin never got the credit and recognition he deserved in our country because of the Cold War.  Gagarin died tragically in a routine training flight in a MiG.

Yuri Gagarin

I even think Alan Shepard was overshadowed by John Glenn who in the third Mercury mission orbited the earth three times.   Shepard did not go up again until 1971 in Apollo 14 and got to walk on the moon.  I was saddened when he died.  I was 45 years old then and was surprised that he died because he was always young in my mind.  

There was not enough hoopla over this anniversary yesterday.  This was something worth commemorating.

Perplexed at the Brink of Retirement

One of the things that concerns me as I baby boom my way to 60 and at some point retirement and that is the question if I can ever actually be able to retire.  I know that I am better off than many and not as well off as some.  I have written about the retirement of the very concept of retirement http://thissideoffifty.blogspot.com/2009/01/january-2006-retirement-of-pensions.html.

This very idea was covered in a recent article in the Huffington Post,  Retirement Crisis: Baby Boomers Near 65 With Retirements In Jeopardy.  The article is a bit of a scary read not only for our generation but the generations behind us that may end up with the debt of bolstering both social security and medicare to support us.    But the article should be read.  According to the article, we are retiring at the rate of 10,000 per day.  This will last over the next 19 years.  Also, according to the article, we are retiring too early and without sufficient savings.  The article re-hashes the litany of reasons for this from the disappearance of pensions, the economic downturn that wreaked havoc with the nest eggs of home value and 401Ks, the strained social security system, and healthcare.  Looking at the glass as half-full, it is not a pretty picture.

This is not what we signed up for when we came of age in the 1960s and 1970s.  We lived in a country where you put your time in and do your job and you sail off into the sunset enjoying your fully funded, often by your employer, retirement.  The companies we planned on working for would reward us for our 30 years by supporting us for another potentially thirty years.  Cool.  Let’s do it.  

Now, at the brink of retirement, I believe that what we were sold on and bought into in 1970-something is simply not all there for the large majority of us.

That ideal plan presupposed a constantly strong and growing economy with a labor force that was also growing and expanding.  It presupposed a wealth of good middle class factory jobs.  It was a plan that was built around the model of Detroit: The Motor City.  You work salary or hourly for a big company or supplier to a big company and everyone was happy.  Somewhere along the way, global competition came in and forced productivity and our companies that were essentially monopolies after WWII.   Things have changed quite a bit.

Most of us did not change enough with the times.  Sure, the wealthiest of us are OK.  But I am guessing the vast majority of us are standing here looking forward and not knowing when and if we can truly retire.  Even if we don the blue vest, we might not be able to truly have enough money to survive.  This will all be magnified tenfold by any serious health issues.

There is another dichotomy here for me as well.  In the spirit of this blog, we had other noble ideals when we were coming of age.  At least, I did.  I thought we would be doing something different than our parents and grandparents.  I thought we would have gone boldly forth and created wonderful alternative livelihoods and lived some kind of utopian hippie summer of love laid back perfect dream.  I know only one friend that actually became a farmer and he is still farmering today.

To a degree, I bought into the dream.  But upon earning a degree, I realized we could not all of us live off opening and running tie-dye t-shirt stores, head shops, quaint music and book stores, and communal farms.  The economies of scale were against us.  We compromised.  We sold out.  We rationalized it... I am still not sure how that happened which is one of the reasons I started this blog.  

The cold hard fact is that we graduated either from high school or college and then had to do something.  Despite all the best laid aspirations, most of us found ourselves working for corporations.  We got married, had 1.7 children, and an economic reality set in. Next thing you know and we are buying into the Reagan era boom and saving for our children’s college, weddings, and our own retirements.  Life was looking pretty rosy for most of us back in those days.

For many of us, though, there was no substantive saving.   Most of us were just getting by and making ends meet.  As employers gradually stopped providing the kinds of funded pensions that were largely in place when we entered the workforce, the burden fell on us to save.  For this to work, however, we had to have enough money to contribute to our 401k plans, the foresight to contribute to these plans, and the stock market had to play along by steadily growing.  For many of us, the first two simply did not happen.  For all of us, especially over the past few years, the stock market simply did not do what many of us were counting on it to do.  The timing of the Great Recession has been horrible for many of us planning for a retirement like our parents have or had.

What do you think about this?  Am I right?  Or just full of it?  What are your plans?  Are you set?  Or do you wish you had planned better.  If so motivated, comment on this piece.  Better yet, write your own story.

Talkin' 'bout My Generation

I just read an article from the News-Review of Douglas County, Oregon about the first wave of baby boomers turning 65.    http://www.nrtoday.com/article/20110213/NEWS/110219915/1063/NEWS&ParentProfile=1055.  It is purely circumstantial that I began this blog at this time.  Truly, I should have started it over a year ago if it were not for my world class procrastination skills.

Douglas County, Oregon?  Back in the day, living in Detroit, I would never be reading anything from that news paper unless it was reprinted in The Detroit Free Press.  Today, it is not really a problem. Most certainly, I read this on line.   I was informed about this article on twitter from a tweet posted by @SeniorBiz whose mission is to provide “Senior News, Opportunities and Benefits for Better, More Enjoyable Living.”  The tweet included the phrase “Talkin' 'bout my generation” which got my attention and directed me to a newspaper I might never have ever read.  The title of the article is “Douglas County Baby Boomers: Talkin' 'bout my generation"  by DD Bixby.

By the way, Douglas County Oregon is along I-5 halfway between the Eugene and the California state line.  The closest I have been to there is San Francisco.

By the way number two, I admit that I learned of this from @SeniorBiz.  I am a follower of @SeniorBiz.  While I intellectually and mathematically comprehend that I am a senior from most definitions of the term including having got the invite to join AARP when first turning 55, I still do not feel all that senior.

The article in the News-Review centers on five residents of the county all about to turn 65:  Leslee Sherman, Bob Adams, Neil Hummel, John DeGroot of Glide and Dale Greenley.  I will not get into much of what they had to say for you can follow the link to the engaging article which is part one of two.  I will provide a few quotes however that are in the spirit of what this blog is intended to be.  

“Baby boomers are used to being examined and held up as the bellwether of American society.”  Not only are we examined, we spend a lot of time examining ourselves.  Partially, this blog is due in part, maybe entirely, to our self-absorption with ourselves.  Until we were born, I was often told that “children were seen and not heard.”  I do believe TV had a whole lot to do with this influencing who and what we are.
“The question today is how retiring baby boomers will affect the U.S. economy.”  This has been a great question.  I will point out however that in the past ten years for sure the questions has shifted.  I would re-phrase it now as:  How will changes in the US Economy, the loss of pensions and the curtailing of benefits affect the retiring baby boomers most of which do not have enough savings?

When Leslee Sherman was a teenager, her mother told her, “Oh, Leslee, every generation thinks they're the special generation.”  Indeed this is true.  But, at that coming to age time in our lives, we do feel special.  The world is opening up to us in different ways.  We are really beginning to experience love, flexing our Independence for real, exploring our careers, solidifying those vital few life long friends, and melding ourselves to the music, movies, and  fashions of that time.  We all, everyone, of every generation, feels the special bonds to their music.

• What makes us think we are so much more special or unique than any other generation?
• Are we the “way to full of ourselves” generation?
• Is the soundtrack of our generation really that good? 
• Have we made an impact or did the Military Industrial Complex win?
• Can we still make a difference?  If so, how?

I kind of have given my answers to some these questions.  I want to hear from others.  I want to hear from you.  I want us all to be... talkin’ ‘bout our generation.

Write me at mgavoor@gmail.com if you would like to post your thoughts here. 

There was a Season...

I am listening to President Obama deliver the State of the Union address.  I am listening to his message of hope and vision of creating a better America.   I am looking at the speech through the eyes of this Aging Child.  I like the spirit of hope.

Sure, I am older, a bit jaded and know that a lot of what politicians say is rhetoric.  The State of the Union is a good news, feel good event.  The country is in the best shape since Obama took office.  That plays into the strength of his style of speaking.  While it is very hopeful, the talk is more about jobs and the economy than it I recall such speeches being or recall wanting them to be back when I was coming of age.

We had economic issues back then but there was really no shortage of jobs.  It was the peak of the post World War II US dominance over the economies of Europe and Japan that were rebuilding from the devastation of the war.  As we did not have to worry about jobs, we were free to take our worries to a higher plain, to think and dream on grander scale.  We were concerned about creating a world with lasting peace and prosperity for all.  Why not?  Or so we thought.

Today it is about the economy and the quality of life in this country.  Not so much for me and my children.  We are doing pretty well.  I worry about the growing gap created by the shrinking middle class. It is a very different country than in the days of Woodstock and the Summer of Love.  

Almost an hour into his speech and he is just getting into the two wars.  Today there is really only a division of left and right.  There is no generation gap, there is seemingly a unified support of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.  We are a more tolerant society.  We have a half-African American President.  I did not think I would ever see that in my lifetime.

I liked the speech tonight.  I liked the vision and spirit of his message.  I am viewing the glass as half-full.  I am sure there will be rebuttals that will take it down a notch or two, but right now I am feeling good.

For some reason it made me think of the old song by the Byrds song, Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season)."  It was actually written in 1959 by Pete Seeger but I remember the Byrds version most.  It is based on Verse 3 of The Book of Ecclesiastes attributed to King Solomon.

1. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
3. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6. A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

It was not my favorite song of the day, but somehow it popped into my head, and fits the evening quite well.

Peace.

Another Mark Heard From...

by Mark Axelrod

www.benchmarkrsi.com

Your Search & Placement Partners since 1988

• What did the movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s mean to you?
  That citizens can move the government in a direction displeasing to the powers that be. That the Constitution really does reign supreme in practice as well as theory...note the unanimous high court decision in the US vs. Nixon. Many people, thoughtful, serious people, anticipated that Nixon would close the high court forcibly, incarcerate the justices, do whatever he had to do in order to render that decision - which he knew would end his presidency - null and void.
  
  
• Did you believe in the ideals of that era?  Do you still believe?  If yes to the first and no to the second, how and why did your beliefs change?
  Read on.
• Did you sell out to the man or even become the man?  How do you feel about that?
  Some of each. My understanding of the "man's" place in the scheme of things is not as doctrinaire as it was in the 60's. I still see the welfare of large institutions, most notably large corporations and especially within that category the major banks, as trumping the welfare of individual American citizens and that will never sit well with me.
  
• Did you buy into the generation gap?  Yes. Did it strain your relationship with your parents?
  No. I always had a free and easy relationship with them because their focus was on the individuals' needs and they measured government's worthiness accordingly. I did (do) have the same focus.  How did it feel watching your own children pass through adolescence? It was moderately rough but none of us got onto the front page of the NY Times. My kids were not much into politics until they were beyond high school. That certainly was not the case with me and most of my contemporaries in the 60's when I was in HS, college, and grad school.
  
  
• Did you become your parents?
  Largely yes.
  
  
• Did you hit any of the major events?  Woodstock? 
  It occurred two weeks before Fran and I got married. Consequently, we had other fish to fry in that time frame. The peace protest in Washington, DC?  Alas, no. I say alas because I should have been there and not making the effort to be there disturbs me still. A point of clarification is in order here. I was not philosophically opposed to the war in a general sense. I was opposed to the way the war was fought. Long before Colin Powell postulated his famous doctrine, I viscerally understood it and accepted its correctness. Had we gone into Nam with the overwhelming military force outlined in the doctrine we would have gone in, done the job, and cleared out quickly. US mortalities and injuries would have been kept to a bare minimum and the cost in dollars and cents would also have been kept to an absolute minimum  Were you in San Francisco in the Summer of Love? That could have been either '67, '68, or '69....no? Makes no difference in any event as I wasn't there at any time in the 60's.
  
• What did you learn in those days that remains an integral part of your life today?
  That 60's rock rock. That we are obsessive-compulsive about being the world's policeman and it is doing us in...our dead and dreadfully wounded young people, our wealth and our overall well-being. Military adventurism and the concentration of a mind-boggling amount of our wealth in a mind-boggling tiny percentage of our population scares me to death. Think Rome.
  
• What did you learn, do, or think back in those days that you are quite happy are not part of your lifestyle today?
  This may be disappointing, but except for my lifelong, victory-less battle with overweight, I'm pretty OK with myself as a young person as well as now. I never broke the law. Is smoking pot against the law? Then and now I march to the drummer of human (i.e., individuals) needs far more than corporate/institutional needs, although I agree and accept that corporations have to do well so that people (by whom I refer not only to the shareholders) will benefit. In fact, I consider myself far more Christian in spirit than present-day hard right  types who wear their Christianity on their sleeves. I am certain that Jesus would take them right to the celestial woodshed if he came back to Earth. It always strikes me as ironic to the Nth degree that extreme conservative Christian fundamentalists (fundamentalists of any religion, actually, except, obviously, those who are apolitical) don't appreciate that if Jesus were alive in America today and a sitting member of the House or the Senate, he would be the most liberal member of either body...far to the left of Al Franken or Bernie Sanders in the Senate and far to the left of Dennis Kucinich or Barney Frank in the House. Jesus' entire life and his teachings focus on what we know today as liberalism. How's that for an inconvenient truth! Would the Bible thumpers try to convince Jesus that he was wrong? A fascinating question, to be sure.

Inner Pride

by Rita Hovakimian

www.inspiringsuccess.net

Inspiring Success specializing in Breakthrough Coaching Programs for Entrepreneurs, Leaders and Professionals 

Any time I say to anyone that I am a child of the '60s I experience an inner pride and speak with a tone of slight boastfulness. I loved being part of that generation for so many reasons. I love telling people (especially the 20-30 somethings) that I did see Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix,  Jim Morrison, Gracie Slick and the Jefferson Airplane live and seeing their eyes widen, become like saucers and light up! "Really", they say? Somehow I have earned their immediate respect for someone who they think really knows rock'n roll. 

I love that we were idealistic and saw what was possible for humanity AND that we had the courage to express our outrage at the stupidity of the Vietnam War, the unethical and evil behavior of those that partook of  the Watergate scandal, the injustice of Racism, Sexism, and all other 'isms'. 

We were outraged, disturbed and really did think we could make a difference-a BIG difference. And in many ways we did! People came out in droves from everywhere; not just the 'hippies' but the clergy, academicians, mothers, fathers, blacks, whites, gays, straights, young and old to express their anger and voice their preference for a world of justice, peace, kindness and generosity for everyone.

The massive protests did bring the Vietnam War to an end. The criminals that participated in Watergate did get appropriately punished. We were bold and relentless in the 60s and we saw results from our actions.

Those were special times. Really, really special times.

And now?

Well, do you see people coming out in droves to express their outrage at the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? And how about the war criminals of the Bush Administration.  How could we let this administration get away with lying to us, manipulating us and betraying us?  The "children of the 60's" would not stand for it!

I for one admittedly have become resigned on the political front. My rationale is that the machine is too big, too powerful and frankly trying to change it is not a good use of my energy. I will vote, sign petitions and make phone calls when the request is made of me from MoveOn.org or the ANCA. But that is as far as it goes.

I have chosen to dedicate and focus my energy and my life in making a difference in people's lives in a positive way. I help conscious and heart centered entrepreneurs bring their visions to fruition in a powerful, successful and prosperous way while having lives of freedom and joy. I wake up every morning loving what I do. I cultivate a state of gratitude daily and this has me feel joyful. This is how I am making a difference now-one person, one group at a time.

Oh, and what did I learn in those days that remains an integral part of my life today?

I don't watch television (except for something exceptional on PBS, Charlie Rose or Bill Moyers).

And somehow I think being part of that "Love Generation" has made me more of a caring human being-at least I would like to think so.

Aging Children, I am one...

It is New Years Day.  Among watching the college bowl games, I thought a bit about it being 2011.  It occurred to me that this year marks the 40th Anniversary of my high school graduation. This quickly turned into a chain reaction of thoughts that end at the resurrection of an old idea that I think I will put into action.  I am almost ashamed to say it may be, you know, something akin to a resolution.

What is the idea?  It is to create this blog for people of my generation to express themselves.  The idea came from a piece I wrote in November 2008:  Was it the Weirdest of Times?

My premise was that coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s was a unique and weird time to grow up.  We were of the Woodstock Generation in which we, well at least I, bought into the notion of creating a better world where peace reigned and where everyone was supposed to get back to the land and live a natural style of life.  It was a time of great social change led by a combination of the Civil RIghts and Anti-War movements which in turn led to Women’s and Gay Liberation.   It was complicated by the popularity of drugs and emergence of Free Love.  It was a unique, weird, and exciting time to come of age.

We are  that generation.  We are the baby boomers, the first generation in the world that grew up with television.  We were the first generation where having a college degree supplanted the magic and need for just a high school diploma.  We were the optimistic generation.  We could change the world... nay, we believed that we would change the world even given the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  We were the Levis generation that wanted to buy the world a Coke.  And to top it off, it was fueled for the most part by some great Rock N’ Roll music that peaked in that great Summer of Love.  

Since I wrote that November 2008 piece, I have wondered how others in my generation (Talking ‘bout My Generation) felt about what they were thinking then and how things actually turned played out forty years later.  So, I am thinking of creating this blog space and encouraging everyone and anyone that wants to express their story.  I think it would be a great forum for expression and discussion.  Here are some thought starter questions that I would to see this blog explore.

• What did the movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s mean to you?
• Did you believe in the ideals of that era?  Do you still believe?  If yes to the first and no to the second, how and why did your beliefs change?
• Did you sell out to the man or even become the man?  How do you feel about that?
• Did you buy into the generation gap?  Did it strain your relationship with your parents?  How did it feel watching your own children pass through adolescence?  Did you become your parents?
• Did you hit any of the major events?  Woodstock?  The peace protest in Washington, DC?  Were you in San Francisco in the Summer of Love?
• What did you learn in those days that remains an integral part of your life today?
• What did you learn, do, or think back in those days that you are quite happy are not part of your lifestyle today?
• How has your life turned out?  According to plan? According to plan B or C?  Are you still planning and moving ahead?
• How has the Great Recession effected you?

I encourage anyone that is motivated by this topic to submit a posting.  I will moderate and approve the postings.  I may also suggest some editing to make your posting more interesting and engaging.  You can post under your own name or anonymously.   The point is to get some good memories, good reflections, and good discussion going in this area.  

I am going to moderate the comments because, quite simply, I want this to be a positive experience for all.  If someone posts something honestly maybe as a catharsis or to get something off of their chest, I do not want to see them berated in the comment section.  As was Bill and Ted’s motto:  Be Excellent to Everyone.

So, what do you think?  Is this a cool idea?  If you think it is a cool idea, take a shot and express yourself.  I would love to hear what other people are thinking and reflecting about our adolescent and college years.

Songs to aging children come,
Aging children, I am one...

Maybe Joni Mitchell will even post something...

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If you want to post something here, send it to me at mgavoor@gmail.com.