The Boomer Rants

Then:  Tool Wall

Now:   Tool Bar

Myfather used to have a workshop with a million different tools.  They hung on the wall, each on its on hook, neatly arranged by size and function.  It was an impressive sight.  And to this day I can still picture walking into his shop, smelling the sawdust, hearing the whir of the machines and knowing that something concrete was being created.

Years later, my husband had the same set up with pegs and tools.

When he was a toddler, my stepson used to carry around a toolbox with his screwdriver, hammer, nails and wrench.

And now my grandson plays with all those same instruments for fixing and building things.
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Hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, saws, nails – those were the tools I grew up around.

But now, well, tools can be something so different from those tangible items hanging on my dad’s corkboard or inside a metal box.  At the age of ninety, my dad can’t even comprehend their purpose.

Yes – I’m talking about that toolbar at the top of the very screen that I am now typing on.  Edit. View. Insert. Track changes.  Spelling.  Autoscan.  Merge. Customize. Format.  Bullets.  There is a tool for everything.  In fact, I wouldn’t doubt if future tools include: stir martini, fix dinner, do dishes.

Sometimes these tools on the computer toolbar are hard to find, even harder to understand and yet so easy to delete.

One simple click of the mouse and whoosh, whatever you were trying to find is gone!  According to my computer techie (genius that he is) it’s still there, but I’ve done something wrong.   Been over anxious.  Clicked too fast.  Moved it off the screen.  Well, if it’s off the screen, then it’s not here!  It’s gone missing.

Before when my dad couldn’t find his tape measure, it was usually somewhere in his workshop.  Maybe under some wood or shoved in the corner.  It certainly hadn’t vanished into thin air.  And most definitely, the entire workshop never disappeared.

Which is what just happened while I was writing this column.  I’ve lost my entire toolbar.  I have no idea where it went.  Off into Cyberspace, a place that really can’t be touched because it’s out there somewhere.  So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look for it.

It may have gone into the kitchen.  But if not, I know I can get an ice cold martini which will make searching for my missing tools that much easier.

Then:  .32 Cents

Now :   $3.79

Of course I’m talking about the cost of gas.

Back in my high school days,  we would each contribute fifty cents or maybe even a dollar toward gas.  If there were five of us, that equaled five dollars and that filled up the gas tank of even the largest car on the road.

Talk about filling the tank.  We didn’t have to do it ourselves.  Those cute guys would come up to the window and ask what we wanted.  Fill ‘er up?  Yes, please, I would mumble, trying to keep my composure.  How cute is he? I’d whisper to my friend sitting shotgun.  Check under the hood?  You need oil?  He’d wink, and I’d swear he wanted to check under more than the hood of my car.
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We would pay with cash and drive off with clean windows and sometimes a new crush.

Where did we go with that full tank?  Cruising, off course.  Up and down Van Nuys Blvd.   I’m sure you all had a cruising street.  Maybe yours was Main St, or Orchard Blvd.   But cruising on a weekend night was the thing to do.

We’d listen to the radio and talk to each other!  Imagine that.  We weren’t all on different cell phones texting other friends for party locations.   Being inside the car was our party.  We’d talk to guys as we cruised up and down the street.  Sometimes, we’d stop for cherry cokes and French fries.  We’d pull into the parking lot of Bob’s Big Boy (interchangeable with whatever diner was your weekend night spot) and talk and flirt.  Then get back in the car and do it all over again.

Today, that hard earned five dollars won’t even buy two gallons of gas.   Not much affordability for cruising.   I feel sad for today’s teenagers because cruising was such a large part of our culture.   But with gas such a large part of our budget, it’s become impossible to drive around just for fun.   Sometimes, it’s almost impossible just to get to work and back.

Not that teens today don’t have new activities.  Things we never dreamed of – such as Twitter and Facebook.  They keep up with each other’s lives, as their lives unfold, and can have friends from all over the world.

But there was nothing like getting in the car on a warm summer evening, having no particular destination, free from our parents for a few hours (seeing as how there were no cell phones for them to check up on us) and enough gas to cruise until our curfew.

Then: A Female Voice

Now:  Voicemail

Remember when you could pick up the phone, dial 411 and get a real live person, someone like Ernestine from Laugh-In? Those were pre-cell phone days.  Pre caller ID.  Pre answering machines.  Prehistoric, if you ask today’s younger generation.

Sometimes, I would call the operator just to find out the time or even the weather in another state.  And then there was that all important emergency call.  When the line was busy for hours at your best friend’s house and you just had to tell her about a new song you heard on the radio, you could have the operator cut in with an emergency.  Now I know they can still do that, but with call waiting and text messaging, there probably isn’t must need for that service.  And most people probably don’t know it still exists.

But what still does exist, is that need for human contact.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stuck in a voicemail loop from hell.

With a cup of coffee at my side, a pen in hand ready to take down the needed information, I call, let’s say, the Gas Company.  After a few rings the computer voice begins:  “Please press one for English, two for Spanish.”  I press one.  The voice then says, “Hola Por favor, escuche con atención.”  Already, I sense that I’m in trouble.

I start over.  I Press one.  “Hello, please listen carefully as our menu has changed.  Press three if you are calling about your account balance.  Press four if you are calling to add new services.  Six if you’d like to speak to the sales department.  Eight if you are experiencing a gas leak.”  I press three only to end up back at the beginning of the recording.   “Please listen carefully as our menu has changed.”

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I bang on the “O” until my index finger begs for relief.  Until my brain is screaming for a “real” person.  “Please listen carefully as our menu has changed!”  By the time I get a real person, my coffee is cold and I’ve forgotten who I was calling and what I was calling about!

Sometimes there just isn’t ever a real voice.  But those computer voices that repeat back to you what you’ve just said.  Sort of.  I say, “Housewares, please.”
The voice says “Okay…Mickey Mouse Ears?  Is that correct?”
“NO!  House…wares.”
“I’m sorry.  I didn’t get that.”
And I don’t get you!  Most often I just hang up.

And while I’m at it, I have another pet peeve.  Answering machines that sound as if the person is really picking up the phone.   “Hi…how’re you doing.  We….”
I start talking “Hi.  I’m good.  How are you?  I can’t wait to see you tonight.”
And then I hear the machine voice.  “We can’t come to phone right now.”
So don’t I feel like an idiot having just had a heartfelt conversation with an answering machine!

I don’t doubt that some day our answering machines will be programmed to carry on conversations.  We can be at a bar in Mexico drinking margaritas while some voice activated computer back at home conducts our business for us.

I just hope that mine understands how frustrating voicemail can be.  Press one if you agree with my sentiments.

Then: American Bandstand

Now:  American Idol

Every weekday at 3:30 I was glued to our black and white TV(where you had to get up to change the channel) watching American Bandstand, hosted by the eternally young (until recently) Dick Clark.   I couldn’t wait to see which of my favorites teen idols would be performing: Paul Anka, Johnny Mathis, The 4 Seasons, to name a few.

But I was even more excited to see the dancers.  Those regulars became part of my life.  I followed their relationships with one another and waited for each new show to see if they were still together.  I guess you could say it was one of the first reality shows.  One without all the glam and back story segments of the shows aired today.

I also was eager to see the new dances and hopefully learn the moves before I went to our Saturday night high school dance.  The Twist.  The Watusi.  The Mashed Potato.  The locomotion  The Pony.  The Monkey.  I’m sure I’ve missed one of them, there were so many.

I’m not sure that a show like Amercian Bandstand could  survive in today’s world of MTV, VH1, iTunes, and You Tube, mediums that provide today’s teenagers with close- ups, rewinds, zooms and swirls.  At any hour of the day.  Not just for one hour.

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My mom always left the room.  She couldn’t stand the music.  And my grandfather called this new rock and roll – barbaric.

Which is where our generation of Baby Boomers differs greatly from those before us.  The music gap seems smaller between most of us and our children, than it was between our “rock and roll” generation and that of our parents’.   Of course, I don’t like all the music my kids listen to, but even what I don’t like, I can tolerate.  We sing along in the car.  We dance around the house.

And each year we look forward to a new season of American Idol.  We pick our favorites (mine is one of the judges!) and sit glued to our flat screen HD TV watching as the contestants perform.

We even play American Idol.  I’ve gone to Hollywood now about a dozen times and each time my grandkids jump up and down as if it’s the first time I performed.  I do the same for them.

The show not only gives these fabulous young singers a change to make their dreams comes true, as well as inspiring kids all over the country, but it also gives families, such as mine, hours of togetherness.

When our favorite contestant sings,  we sit on the edge of the couch, holding our breathes, hoping he or she doesn’t sing off pitch. We cheer when the judges agree with us.  And boo them when we think they are wrong.

And during a fast tune, we get up and dance.  I’m usually doing the Swing or some other “old fashioned” dance according to my family.

I never would have made it as a regular on American Bandstand.  But who knows?   I may be dancing with a future American Idol!

Then: Tweeting

Now:  Twittering

When my daughter was little we moved across the country from Michigan to California and for several months we lived with my parents.  At that same time, a mama sparrow made a nest in a tiny alcove in the roof.  My daughter found it fascinating to watch this dedicated bird gather twigs and scraps of paper, building the perfect place to start her family.  Every day we watched her progress until it was time for her to sit on her eggs.  Shortly after that, the little babies were born and each morning we could hear them chirping and tweeting as their mama went in search of food.

It got crowded in that nest just about the same time it got crowded under my parents’ roof.  My husband and I knew it was time to find a place of our own.  My mom didn’t push us out (I don’t think that mother bird used that tactic either) but it was just time for it to happen.  The baby birds went twittering off into their own lives.

As did we, moving across town to our own apartment.
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My foray into Twitter last week reminded me of that time and of those baby birds who by now must have grandbaby birds of their own.

But my attempt at sending Tweets is a far cry from that of those little birds.  It doesn’t come instinctively or naturally at all.  With only 140 characters to state what I’m doing, I began to wonder –  what am I doing?  Is it something that other Tweeters or Twitterers will want to follow?  Why do I want to spend the time broadcasting my every move?

To me all these Tweets filling up cyberspace are like flocks of birds flying in all directions at once.  Inevitably they are bound to get mixed up.  Much like that old game of Telephone.

My status could say :  Am wondering why all the light bulbs burn out at the same time.  Days later here comes a response: Sorry you are burnt out but there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

If we want we can be bombarded by Tweets and Twits and whatevers all day long on our cell phones.  Second by second status updates.  Tweeters are eating, sleeping, drinking, dancing, dressing, kissing, dreaming, knitting, walking, talking, crying, doing, being.  I know this is the information age, but how much information can one baby boomer brain take?

In my case – not  much.

So for now, this will be my status:  Janie is listening to the birds tweet outside her bedroom window and enjoying the melodies of Mother Nature.

Then:  Mary, Jane & Susan

Now:  Apple, Audio & Crazy

It used to be easy to tell gender by one’s name.  When I was in high school, I knew a lot of Steves, Roberts, Johns and Alans.  All of them were guys.  As for girls we had a lot of Beverlys, Carols, Susans and Marshas.

Of course I knew a boy called Lynn (I felt so sorry for him) and sometimes nicknames could be confusing.  Such as Ronni for Veronica and Bobbi for Barbara.  Unless you could see the name spelled out.

And then there were always those few kids whose parents couldn’t tell the difference between a first name and a last one.  You know – the Edward Edwards, or the Jackson Jacksons.

But overall it wasn’t as confusing as it is today.  Now names are all over the place.

Actually, I don’t mind girls with traditional boys names or some of the newer unisex names.

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But then I guess with a celebrity it might not matter.  The child of a famous person isn’t going to live a normal life, no matter what his name is.

It’s the regular kids whose parents think…oh, so cool – I’ll copy Gwyneth and name my daughter Apple.  But Apple doesn’t really work as well when it’s followed by Birnbaum and especially if that Birnbaum owns a fruit market.

And then there is Jermaine Jackson’s son, Jermasjesty.  He might not get teased but the little red haired boy with freckles and the last name Temple or King surely might.

Or I.P. Freely. Giving his child that name should have been more than enough to send David Carradine to his horrible fate.  I can’t even imagine a celebrity using this name.

But my favorite “out-there-crazy-name” is Audio Science.  I have no idea if this child is a girl or a boy and I don’t even think having a famous parent (Shannyn Sossamon) will make this child immune from playground taunting.

They say names can influence your personality.  The way you view the world and in return the way the world views you.  Perhaps Audio Science is destined to work in the Audio/Visual department at his/her high school.  Jermasjesty is going to marry a real Princess and not the daughter of Bob Geldof.  And I.P. is going to sell toilet paper.

Well, everything goes in cycles.  Names come and go.  One thing that never changes is teasing.  Especially on the playground.  And kids love to make up nicknames, for whatever reason.

So I say, starting off with a normal name just makes life that much easier.

What do you think?

Then:  Paper

Now:  Paperless

Way back when we used to have something called a Paper Drive.  Remember those?  We’d save our newspapers for months, stacking them up in the garage until there wasn’t any room for our cars. Then we’d put them in even piles, tie them with rope and haul them off to the school Paper Drive, which at the time was a huge fund raiser.

Ask kids today about a paper drive and they are likely to think it’s something to put in their computer to drive the paper through the printer.  That is, if they are using paper at all.

In my office, we are tying to go paperless.  But of course, that involves reading a huge training manual of, you guessed it, a hundred printed pieces of paper!  So, the paperless office, at least where I work, may be a long way off.

Still, other facets of my life have gone that way.  I rarely write checks anymore.  Instead I use my debit card.  But then of course, by the time I put my debit card back in my wallet, the money for the milk I just bought has already been deducted from my checking account.  So, in some instance (like when I’m trying to float my money) I will write a check.

I pay some bills online, but not all of them.  And it’s been years since I mailed anyone a letter.  In fact, I can’t help but wonder if some day the postage stamp will be something seen only in a museum.

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Yes, I’m willing to go paperless in most facets of my life.   But when it comes to books, magazines and the Sunday paper, I may never change.

I know the Kindle , the Nook and Sony Reader are supposed to be like holding a book, but they are not books.  There are no pages to turn, to run your fingers over.  There is no smell of the freshly printed word.  The wispy sound of a turning page.

I can’t imagine reading a bedtime story to my grandchildren from anything but a book, where they get to touch the beautiful illustrations.  Or falling asleep with a computer on my nose.

And then how about all those quick trips to the bathroom, where I grab a magazine off the floor and read a quick article?  Not an easy thing to do with a wireless reading device.

One of my most favorite things in life is reading: books, magazines, cereal boxes, the Sunday Paper.  Anything where there is no messing around with wireless connections or downloads.  No cyberspace errors.  No “Out of Memory” messages.

Especially Sunday mornings.  I love to curl up on the couch with a good cup of coffee and all those wonderful sections spread around me, filled with articles ranging from world news to the local pet store.  Reading on a computer, just doesn’t seem as cozy.

And when I’m through, I recycle the paper (much the same as we did with our Paper Drives) and pass books and magazines on to friends.

I know we’d be saving trees if we didn’t use so much paper, but lying in bed reading a good book is one of the things that saves my mind and keeps my memory alive.

All I have to do is – pick it up, open the page and read.

Then:  I will see you later.

Now:   c  u  l8tr

I may be one of a handful of people who really enjoyed diagramming sentences.  I just loved how the words fell together in such a logical manner.   To me, it all made perfect sense.

Nouns. Verbs.  Prepositions.  Adjectives.  Adverbs.  Every word had a job to perform (subject, object, predicate, etc) and a proper place in the sentence.  When I finished with my diagram I felt like I had performed serious sentence surgery and the world was better off because of my performance.  I’d go around diagramming in my head as the words floated into place.

But like I said, I was in the minority and eventually this method of teaching was deleted from the curriculum.  I’m fairly certain there weren’t any tears shed by our English teachers.  Or any students standing on picket lines threatening to stop going to school unless diagramming was reinstated.

But what about the words themselves?  How did they feel being cast aside, having to fight for their proper place in between all those punctuation marks?

Well, they did quite well for years.  For decades, actually.  Until – the cyberspace revolution.  And then it seemed as if overnight, all those wonderful nouns and verbs had been replaced by abbreviations, some even reduced to one single letter.

It’s like a foreign language out there in the world of e-mails and texting.  TTYT.  LOL. IMO.  BTW.  Everyday I get an email with some sort of code that I can’t understand. And believe me, I try to figure it out.  I make up what I think the letters stand for and then hope that I’m wrong.  How dare they say that?

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But once I learned how to text, I realized why abbreviations are being used.  It’s so much easier and thus quicker than typing out the entire word.  But why do we feel the need to make things easier?  And why do we need this instant gratification of texting in the first place?

Cell phones are bad enough.  With everyone plugged in like some space alien talking to themselves as they grocery shop or stand in line at the bank.

It used to be that we left work for lunch and bathroom breaks, but now work just trots along with us.

Where r u
P ing

And with texting comes a whole new set of anxieties.  How come he didn’t answer right away?  Oh, God…did he misunderstand what *I* texted?  Was she being sarcastic?  Or mean?  With texting we lose the intimacy of a conversation, of voice inflections and pauses.  Of giving a word a certain meaning in the way we linger over the syllables.

Text interpretation used to mean understanding what was in our school books.  Now it means deciphering our instant messages.  I can’t help but wonder if we’re opening up a whole new world for the psychotherapists.

But of course, I’m not one to be left behind.  I’m going to keep up with all the new technology.  It’s the only way to stay young.

So for now, this baby boomer is saying TTYL.  The best thing we can do – is what we did in our youth – KOT

Then:  Small, Medium, Large

Now:   Tall, Grande, Venti

The photos above look the same but the names have been changed to confuse the innocent.  Sometime in the recent past the small, medium and large coffee went the way of the eight track, the cassette player and the soon to be extinct analog TV.

Boutique coffee shops such as Starbucks and Coffee Bean  offer coffee drinks that have become works of art, with exotic names like Cinnamon Dolce Creme, Mocha Frappucino and Carmel Macchiato.  And as if learning the names of these new drinks isn’t enough, we also have to familiarize ourselves with the new sizes now being offered.

At Starbucks they have tall, grande and venti.  At Coffee Bean they serve small, regular and large.
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Doesn’t “regular” mean what one usually orders? “I’ll have my regular.”  Isn’t it presumptuous to assume that everyone’s regular is the drink in the middle?

And yesterday at the mall, I could have ordered an ernome from a barista who was only too happy to add an extra shot of caffeine for only .25 cents.  Such a deal.  An enorme coffee alone was enough to give me the jitters.

Every now and then I do stumble upon a small, medium and large menu.  But then a small is what used to be medium, a medium is what used be a large and well…you get the picture.  Food in this country has become Super Sized.  Is that to fit our stomachs or our expanding egos?

So the other day with my tall coffee in hand I went to visit my daughter where my granddaughter excitedly showed me her report card.  She got all 4’s.  Fours!  It appears that the grading system now uses numbers.  What happened to the good old A,B,C,D & F system?

Speaking of numbers, the last time I went shopping I was completely confused as to what size I should buy.  The store’s sizing started with a zero and went to up to four.  Now, I’m a small person, so I guess I’d be a negative number.  Who wants to feel like they’re less than nothing?  And really who is getting fooled?  If you’re a four at this shop, well, then you’re a large.  Oh excuse me, a venti.

Yes, the world is changing, whether we like it not.  Things are looked at and labeled differently than when we were young.  Back then a woman with a hot flash – was a woman with a hot flash.  Today- well, we’re called hormonally challenged women.

And I say that’s enough of a challenge without having to learn how to order a coffee drink!

Then:   Woodstock

Now:    Chicken Stock

1969 – What I wouldn’t have given to go to Woodstock.  Joe Cocker.  Hendrix.  Joplin.  Richie Havens.  Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.  All my favorites were playing.  But I was too young and it was too far away from where I lived.

So, I, like a million other young adults watched the spectacle on TV.  Next time, I told myself – I’d go next time.   Well, the next Woodstock was in 1994 and by that time I was already well beyond going to a jam-packed concert.

In fact, the closest I’ve ever come to attending an event with “stock” in its name involves one with chicken, vegetable or beef.  And takes place in my kitchen.  Now, I’m not a good cook and never pretended to be one, although I can throw together a pot of chicken soup.  All my creativity has gone into putting words together to form a story, not into mixing ingredients to make a meal.
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But in recent years (now that I live with an excellent chef) I’ve come to understand and appreciate the creativity in cooking.  And I realize that that every meal tells a story.

Back in those pre-Woodstock days the meals were mostly prepared by our moms, confirming the story that men brought in the bacon and the women cooked it.  Those home cooked family dinners (in which all five food groups were represented) told of an era where families could live on one income.  Where moms were home in the afternoon to help with homework and watch kids play out in the street until dusk.  Where fathers came home from work, put up their feet, read the paper and relaxed.  Where families talked to each other over lamb chops and green beans and afterwards watched TV.

By Woodstock “…the times they were a-changin’…”. As more women went to work, the crock-pot became a kitchen fixture.  Meals told the story of the two income family, where mom now had less time to spend in the kitchen.  But still, families talked to each other over these one-pot meals and afterwards watched TV.

To today’s kids that may seem old-fashioned and dull.  What?  No Internet  No Facebook.  No cell phones.  No texting.  OMG!  Mom, how did you ever exist?  How did you know what everyone else was doing while you were at home just watching TV?

Well, we did just fine.  I’ve made it past the half century mark and not only do I have most of my brain cells, I have most of my same friends.

In fact, this afternoon as I chop carrots, parsnips and onions, I have my CD player on full blast.  Joe Cocker is singing live from Woodstock –“Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends….I get high with a little help from my friends…gonna try with a little help from my friends…”

And this soup I’m preparing—it tells the story of a woman who is going to call up those friends and invite them over for dinner.  Be here by six.