50 Shades of ... Me

I hit the mid-century mark this week. I’m at the tail end of the “Baby Boom” generation – which started in 1946 and ended in 1964. I made it by a month and am considered a “Late Boomer” or “Trailing Edge Boomer” according to Wikipedia.  The celebrations were bi-coastal with my enjoying good friends and family on both coasts on the same weekend, topped off by the Facebook frenzy of greetings from near and far. Hitting the big five-oh has not (so far) been one of those deep emotional psychological moments – that happened for me at 35 and again at 40. According to Social Security’s Life Expectancy Calculator I’ve got 32.3 years left.

Based on family history I thought I had about 25 years left – so I figured I was two-thirds through the journey. It’s fantastic that the U.S. Government provides life expectancy estimates through the Social Security website … because it’s not like they’ve ever been wrong or miscalculated anything before.

I’ve got the same human affliction of looking back and self-analysis that we all do. For this milestone, however, I am focused on the future. Perhaps it’s the earthquake that became of my life during "The Great Recession" - right now I'm fortunate to be able to focus on what’s next. Having lost nearly everything of material value, I need not worry about retirement...I'll just work 'til I drop. I don’t have a bucket list. Yet. Sure there's the usual list of "wouldn't it be nice..." things, but I'm not particularly passionate about them. While I’m not too interested in looking back on my own history, it is fascinating to see what happened fifty years back.

1964 was a good year. According to a wonderful DVD of the year I received as a gift – it’s not only the year that I arrived, but so did Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin. General Douglas MacArthur, Ian Flemming, Cole Porter and President Hoover died during the year. The Beatle’s landed in the U.S. for the first time in 64. Leonid Brezhnev took over the Soviet Union from Nikita Khruschev and presided over the country until he died in 1982. President Johnson was elected by a “landslide.” The Civil Rights Act became law and Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Actor.

What’s happened in the past fifty years has been remarkable in human history, just like the fifty before were and the next fifty will be. Whether I’m around for all of them or a portion of them, I’m sure it'll be quite the journey.

Comments

  1. Suzanne GeimerNovember 27, 2014 at 12:39 AM

    Happy Happy Birthday Craig and thanks for sharing your stories.

    ReplyDelete

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