"You can't have your cake and eat it too"

Yes, I'm a baby boomer!  Big Surprise! It seems like that is all we ever hear about are the Boomer's and what they are or are not going to do.  Growing up, I don't remember ever being categorized as a 'boomer' or as anything important in the world's view.  I just did what I thought I should do in order to get through school and life.  I remember being in Mrs. Carter's sixth grade classroom when the Principal, Mr. Miller, came on the loud speaker (which is what we called it, not the P.A. system), to announce that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.  Mrs. Carter was crying and wringing her hands and her poor old head was wagging as though the end of the world was coming soon.  For the rest of the afternoon, we listened to the broadcast by Walter Cronkite about the events unfolding in Dallas, Texas. I don't remember ever being in Dallas before this event, although I had an Aunt and an Uncle who lived in the area and who raised their families there. 
I know lots of you remember where you were too on that unfortunate event, but I just needed to get that off my chest.  We baby boomers have lived through some remarkable events and changes, and we have had a hand in causing some of those changes!  We  were specifically targeted by the world of merchandising to test their products.  I didn't know that!  I was just a kid, but I do remember feeling envious of my friends who perhaps had more money, and could buy new clothing, records, and magazines.  Of course I grew up with three sisters, and a brother, so what little we had, from my dad who worked at the "City Water Department" (and we all know that civil servants didn't and probably still don't get paid very much) had to go a long way.
My clothing was hand made or hand me downs.  Since I was the first child (how did you like the way I said I was the oldest?) in the family, I had hand me downs from my older cousins.  There were, however, special times when I got a new hand made dress, birthdays or Christmas.  I never had "spending money".  My dad didn't believe in an allowance, so I was never able to get records, or movie magazines to keep up with the latest in the movie world, or go very frequently to a movie for that matter! (boo hoo, don't you feel sorry for me!)
Records, now that's a blast from the past! We boomers have seen the start of hard vinyl records and players, through the 4-track tape players to the cassette tape players and now a whole new world of digital.  Records brought a whole new way to enjoy music.  It was clear, not staticy (if that's a word) with the radio signal interferance like when we listened to the radio.  Living 15 miles from the nearest town didn't help that radio signal, but records put the Beatles, the Raiders and Gary Lewis and the Playboys right in our bedrooms, (which is where our record players were because they were "portable"). Oh and I forgot to mention, "The Archies".
Before the portable record player, I remember Dad's old phonograph player.  It was a piece of furniture and played two speeds, 78 RPM and 33 1/3 RPM.  When I got my brand new 'stereo record player', stereo, because it had two speakers, I could put it anywhere in the house and it played all three speeds, including 45 RPM.     This was all about information, we were beginning the information age.  The 78 RPM records only held one song on each side, but they were huge, thick, heavy records.  The 33 1/3 records held whole albums on the two sides, they were big records, 12 inches maybe in diameter,  then came the little 45's which again held only one song, but it was smaller (about 6 inches in diameter) and it may even had had a better song on the reverse side!
As I grew up, going on through Jr. High school, and then High School, I did what I  was supposed to do.  Started dating when I was 15, memorized Bible passages, played the organ and piano at church, graduated high school in the Honor Society, made good grades.  However, being a girl, my only choices encouraged by teachers, parents, pastors, etc. was, going to college to become a teacher or nurse then getting married and of course having children. The world of women executives was just formulating, and of women in the military was only by way of the medical field and was again only being formulated by those willing to pave the way ahead of me.
Now for some other "facts"...
 We 'boomers' didn't want to be like our parents were.  According to the wikipedia a baby boomer is someone who was born between the post world war II years 1946 to 1964.  It seems that over seventy six million babies were born during that time in America alone.  No wonder our generation is so influential, sheer numbers alone makes it so.  When you look at the fact that various marketing companies started out pitching their product at boomers and their parents "almost from the time they were conceived", it makes sense that we, the "boomers" should "control over 80% of personal financial assets and more than 50% of discretionary spending power. They are responsible for more than half of all consumer spending, buy 77% of all prescription drugs, 61% of OTC medication and 80% of all leisure travel."  I fit the norm for the average "baby boomer". We kind of rejected or redefined traditional values, some of us going so far as thinking we were a 'special' generation.
Me, I got married at age 18, I loved my husband, had my children, felt guilty for not going to college. Then felt guilty because I didn't have an outside the home job, or career, like so many women who entered the work force.  When I eventually found work outside the home, I felt guilty because I was leaving my children at a day care!  Oh, and I did my fair share of rebeling, still do from time to time. 
My mom once said to me "You can't have your cake and eat it too."  I know that statement may not make much sence to some, but it meant that in making a decision, I couldn't get both sides of the decision.  So when I found a job I was good at, I had to feel guilt about being away from my children.  Or when I went to college, I had to feel guilty about taking family income to afford my class, etc. etc. etc.!  That's what Being Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place is like for me.

 

Not Getting Older, I'm Getting Better!

Having a bran new blog is like having sex for the first time, I'm so inexperienced and nieve, that I haven't a clue what's going on!  But that's ok, because I intend to learn and thanks to my ingenius, good looking, smart, and dear husband, I have the opportunity to learn.  He was the first person to interest me in sex, and he is the first person who got me interested in blogging. (tehehee!)  This is a blog I have created from the folks at Google.  I use gmail as my email, and they have lots of other good stuff too.
No joke, ya'll, he got into computers over a score of years ago, (lets see how many of you know that number!) and he started learning, investing in, and building (in our own home, mind you), computers way back in 1997, or so.  I say, 'or so' because we started out with our first computer way back in the '80s with the "VIC 20" by Commodore, "the Friendly Computer", it says on the box.  How many of ya'll remember it?  It had a keyboard, and in order to use it, it had to be connected to the television.  As I remember, it had cassette tapes to insert into it to give it commands.  My dear daughters loved playing a game on it about being lost in dracula's castle.  I don't think they ever solved to that game.

He bought these big old computer books then (the '80s), huge things they were.  They were red in color, and about 15x11x4, I'm guessing, and all about the early years of computing.  You know the feeling that if you'd only been at the right place in the right time, it could have been you?  Well he got the computer bug, probably about the same time Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs got the bug, but...the rest, as they say, is history.  I remember that he worked in the library of the Trinity University in San Antonio when the computer was a huge monstrasity and he had punch cards to insert some way.  It could have been then that he got an interest in computing.

However it happened, it is because of his interest in computers that every member in our family now have access to a computer, he either built or recommended in some way. I'm talking about in-laws and out-laws.  He built these cute little "Barbie" computers for our two oldest granddaughters.  They were painted a pretty silver with pink "Barbie slippers" appliques and stickers on them.  They were just small gaming computers, but he specially built them with his granddaughters in mind.  Just the way he built the play houses and doll houses for his daughters as they were growing up, he designed computers for his grandchildren too.  The grandsons' computers had all the blinking lights, high speed, and bells, and whistles, that boys want too. We probably have close to two dozen computers, or more that he built over the past eleven years! (Did I say he is generous!)  That's a lot of computers!

I'm saying all this because as my title suggests, I'm approaching retirement age, and my husband has already retired, as of May 6, 2011!  I'm getting all this nice stuff out of the way so I can refer to it later on when I need to vent about how 'our' retirement is going.  I dreamed about having a blog, no really, I had a dream about it last night.  It was going to be about retirement from the view point of a baby boomer.  However, when I clicked on the link to start up this blog, I didn't know it would ask me all kinds of questions about adding gadgets and extra links, or photos or what ever, so again have patience with me as I learn, and by the way, if you have links you'd like me to add or mention, let me know, I'll sure do it!

So that's about it for now, my husband just woke up from his afternoon nap, and we talked about going fishing this evening.  Ahhh, this is the life, well we'll see...

Ya'll come back now!
AnnieOakley