About a year ago I chuckled over a cartoon by Gary Turdeau, definitely a baby boomer, where he first realized that he was at a certain age when a young woman at the checkout counter in the grocery store didn’t notice him. It was his comment on the TV show “Men of a Certain Age,” who feel invisible to a whole generation of younger women.
Well, here I am having another birthday, and on the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation, I’ve been across that 65 threshold already. But I had the opposite reaction while shopping yesterday. Several people – men and women- rushed to open the door for me in store after store. I heard quite a few saying “ma’am, ” as in “Do you need any help with that, ma’am?”
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“I must be looking pretty good today,” I laughed to myself, secretly savoring all that unusual attention as I drove home. So before I brought the bags in from my shopping trip, I looked in the mirror for signs that things might be improving in the looks department. There I saw a grey-hair woman with a windblown look not becoming at all. I suddenly realized that I was “the little ole lady” that we’ve all been trained to help since Cub scouts and Brownies.
May we all live to enjoy this kind of attention!
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Share your Boomer Birthday story on the The Boomers: Reflecting, Sharing, Learning Facebook page. The page is about a local project of the Athens Regional Library and Lyndon House Arts Center. Visit The Athens Boomer Website to learn more.
