Buying Time Randy finds boomers everywhere—spending money Statistics say there are 80 mil-lion baby boomers fritzing around the U.S. right now, and I’m here to say that I think I’ve encountered about half of them in the last month or so. Now that Barb and I are back into teaching, we’re enjoying a little more free time for travel than we’ve had for many a year—a lot of long week-ends and spring breaks and exam study time and, now, a whole long sweet summer off. And as we’ve traveled here and there, everywhere we go there are baby boomers in droves. Barb suggests that maybe we’re just noticing them because we’re in that age group, too. “Remember when the kids were young,” she reminds me. “When they were babies, we always noticed the other couples with babies, and when they were toddlers, we didn’t pay attention to people with babies anymore. And when they were middle-schoolers or teenagers, we mainly noticed families with middle-schoolers and teenagers.” She may be right, because I came home from several trips this spring and summer convinced that there were only baby boomers left in the world. Of course, it may also be true that, gas prices being what they are, only baby boomers have the money and leisure to travel. Then that is as it should be. We’re entitled to some serious perks to go along with thinning hair and menopause. (A few baby boomer facts for you: About 28 percent of Americans are boomers—people born between 1946 and 1964, which means boomers could also be the children of boomers, which may explain that impressive 80 million total. I person-ally always think of boomers as the ’60s generation, the ones that by sheer numbers changed the country in so many ways—musically, politically and especially economically. Whom do you think we have to blame for SUVs? Right now boomers are credited with $2 trillion in buying power.) When Barb and I visited the Smokies a couple of months ago, the bad economy did not seem to be affecting the boomer-age tourists. We were traveling with boomer relatives who, shall we say, have a good deal more “buying power” than we do, so we ended up at a very expensive, huge hotel in Tennessee—and it was sold out. Most of the people we chat-ted with in the lobby and breakfast room were a bit younger than we are and were already long retired. We spoke with a retired investment banker near Gatlinburg who credited baby boomers with the great economy we had in the ‘90s. “There were about 70 million of us then,” he said, “mostly at the peak of our earning power. No wonder the economy was so good.” Were that the whole story, I can’t believe the economy wouldn’t be stronger now, since everywhere I looked, boomers were spending like they personally owned the bank. At a bluegrass festival a few weeks later in the mountains of North Carolina, baby boomers were out in force with their mandolins and banjos (often, more than one of each). A lot of these musicians, like me, came to the pursuit of music late in life, when they finally decided to allow themselves a little breathing room from 50-hour weeks and unused vacations. There were about 75,000 people at the festival, and it was neat to see so many people in my approximate age group still dancing in the aisles, toting around their fiddle cases—groovin’, as we used to say. Far out. Right on. Earlier this year, Barb and I went on our first trip to Nag’s Head for the year—the last week to enjoy off-season rates. Each year our nephew Steve reserves a good house for that week and invites a large, congenial group of family and friends. Barb and I are always the oldest ones at this gathering, but we had only to step into a restaurant or the outlet mall to be among peers. Lots of peers. As Barb shopped, I sat on a bench at the mall beside a fellow from Ohio, a 50-year-old retiree from the federal government with “a nice pension and good insurance.” His wife came back with eight shopping bags—I counted them—and I was much relieved when Barb turned up a few minutes later with one bag holding a plastic tomato. (Don’t ask me—I was just along for the ride.) A couple of things these hordes of recently encountered boomers had in common was that the majority of them looked pretty darn good, and most everybody seemed to be having a marvelous time. At least the last part of that applies to me, too. Randy Fitzgerald is chair of the English and journalism department at Virginia Union University. He is a former Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist and University of Richmond administrator. His blog is www.randyfitzgerald.blog.com. |
|
Archives:
|
