God’s Waiting Room is Empty

by Bob Sparrow

God’s Waiting Room

‘God’s Waiting Room’ is the euphemistic phrase for where people 65 and over used to go to live while they were waiting to die. But the ‘Baby Boomers’ have done it again! They’ve changed everything. They’ve emptied the waiting room.   Now 65 year olds are summiting mountains, jumping out of airplanes and running marathons. From the time the 78 million ‘Boomers’ were born (1946 -1964) they’ve had it their way. They were the first generation to be raised in the presence of television, which gave marketers easy access to millions of people who were now no longer just compared to the people around them, they were exposed and compared, to the entire world. So what did the Boomers do? They raised their game, they wanted it all, they demanded the best. They couldn’t always afford the best, so, unlike their parents who always saved before they purchased an expensive item, they popularized the credit card. Now, as the first of the ‘Boomers’ turned 70 last year, they are changing the ‘Golden Years’.

Previous generations looked forward to finishing their 30-year career with the same company, retiring at 65 with a gold watch and living maybe another 8-10 years before cashing in their chips. Today at 65, we find Boomers starting their own companies, buying their own Apple watch and heading to the cashier’s window to buy more chips. They have literally changed the way to do almost everything; certainly they’ve changed how we think about aging.

Boomers are ‘all in’

But to be fair, and just to help keep the Boomers humble, there have been some pretty successful ‘senior citizens’ throughout history. The following accomplishments are true, the parenthetical comments that follow are mine and subject to not being true.

  • Benjamin Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence when he was 70 (He actually thought he was picking up the lunch tab for a few of his cronies)
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt didn’t buy his first railroad until he was 70 (He then gave it to his son for Christmas along with a track that circled Rockefeller Center’s Christmas tree)
  • Omkali Singh is the oldest woman to give birth at 70 (Her baby was 46 when he was born)
  • Clothing designer Calvin Klein, cast Lauren Hutton in an underwear ad when she was 73 (They actually cast her when she was 70, but it took her three years to get the underwear on).
  • At 77 John Glenn became the oldest person in space (He was the one that left his right-hand turn signal blinker on as he orbited the earth)
  • 80 year old Yuichiro Miura is the older person to summit Mt. Everest (I had to use oxygen just to type that!)
  • At 92 Paul Spangler finished his 14th marathon (He finished both first and last in his age group)
  • When George Burns was 94, he performed on the New York stage where he first began his career (He told the same jokes at both performances without the risk of anyone having heard them before)
  • Nola Ochs became the oldest person to receive a college degree – she was 94 (She’s currently looking for a job)
  • Retired Lt. Col. James C. Warren is a former navigator of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American military aviator in the U. S. armed forces. At the age of 87, he became the oldest person in the world to receive his pilot’s license  (However, Harrison Ford, 74, holds the record for oldest pilot to crash 3 times and still keep his license)
  • At 91 and 103 respectively, Doreen Luckie and George Kirby became the oldest newly weds (Rumors were unfounded that they had to get married)

Makes you want to quit reading this and get out of that easy chair and go do something, doesn’t it?  (But don’t have a baby!)

Still not Wastin’ Away

There have clearly been some outstanding accomplishments by those supposedly ‘past their prime’, but with Jimmy Buffett, who turned 70 last December, as their Pied Piper, I’m certain the Boomers will continue to show us a whole new way to ‘play the back nine’.

Post Script: If you find errors in this post, please blame it on my sister’s arthritis remedy – who knew gin was health food?!

 

THE SCARIEST HALLOWEEN IN YEARS

A commentary by Bob Sparrow

It’s that time of year, a time for scary things.  Here are some things that are scaring the shit out of me this Halloween.

  • Our government  Never have we been so polarized.  We see our government not trying to do what’s right for the American people, but making sure the other party doesn’t get credit for doing what’s right for the American people.  If you want to start an argument, just take a right or left position on a subject and you will very quickly see a ‘house divided’.  Our government is broken and no one seems to care, much less know how to fix it.
  • Politicians (Obviously I’m not done with our government yet!)  Today’s
    politicians from both parties are first, self-serving, then party-serving and rarely, if ever, think about 1) serving the people in their constituency, and 2) doing what is best for the country.  Our Social Security program is not good enough for them; our health care system is not good enough for them.  Get them on the same programs as the rest of us, get them term limits and get them out!  They are the problem they’re pretending to fix.
  • Our position on illegal aliens  What don’t people get about the word ‘illegal’?  We have always been a nation of laws, except when it comes to this issue.  It is now considered to be prejudicial and politically incorrect (another scary thing) to try to up-hold the law regarding this problem, because it is primarily directed at the Hispanic community.  Bull shit!  Illegal is illegal.  We have good immigration laws, it’s scary that we don’t enforce them.
  • The dumbing down of America.  Perhaps it’s because modern technology has exposed more, but wow, are we stupid!  People don’t read anymore, they get their news, thoughts and cultural enlightenment from reality TV and celebrity
    tweets.  It’s scary how important what Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian are doing.  Our commitment to education is best demonstrated by the ever-widening
    gap between what we pay our professional athletes and what we pay our teachers.
  • Retirement.  It’s turned me into a sedentary curmudgeon.

 What’s scaring you this Halloween? 

Use our ‘Comments’ section to let us know.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

September 8, 2011

Restaurants are attempting to increase our weight some more,

They now want to take food stamps at all the fast food stores.

The national obesity experts say that’s not the way we should behave,

And say our taxes will now be used to pay from “burger to grave”.

Baby boomers are now considered to be the most stressed out,

Watching retirement fade as their stocks have taken a clout.

Experts are advising calm and “not to over-medicate”,

This – to a generation that doesn’t know how to be straight.

Maryland’s Terrapins have new football “uni’s”,

And the best thing being said is they look a little loony.

More embarrassing still, they have the same theme,

And look remarkably like the women’s roller derby team.

The Kennedy Center has revealed this year’s honorees,

It’s a very distinguished group that will be on their marquee.

With Ma and Diamond tributes no one will be bored,

But what accent will Streep use when she gets her award?

For a personalized poem or tribute, visit our website at

www.redposey.com