Joan’s Boomer Blog

Lucille Ball was born 100 years ago on August 6th, 1911. Even after all these years, everybody still loves Lucille Ball, as evidenced by the

New book about Lucille Ball

fact that a book and a DVD set were recently released relating to her. The book, Lucille Ball FAQ gives details of her life that go beyond the usual biography, proving that people are still fascinated by this talented red head.

The other offering is four Lucille Ball movies, The Long, Long Trailer, Forever Darling, Room Service and Du Barry Was a Lady.

Although Lucille Ball had been a movie actress since the 1930’s, (she appeared in 72 films during her career) whacky Lucy Ricardo, of the 1950’s TV show, I Love Lucy, is the persona she is best remembered for.

What I find fascinating about Lucille Ball, however, is the fact that she didn’t become Lucy Ricardo, Queen of Slap Stick, until she was already 40 years old and although she met and married Cuban bandleader Desi Arnez in 1940, she didn’t have her two children until she was also in her 40’s.

In today’s culture, where youth is not only worshipped but held on to with iron fists, and actresses over age 35 have trouble getting parts, Lucille Ball is still an inspiration to the AARP set!  I even remember one episode where Lucy was trying to lose 12 pounds to get into a size 12 dress to be in Ricky’s show. What! Lucy was famous and popular and a size 12? My how times have changed! Nowadays, most actresses are about a size zero.

Lucille Ball movies

Lucy was an inspiration not only because her age and her size 12 physique, and the fact that she was a powerhouse entertainer and comedian, she was also a smart, powerful businesswoman and the first female head of a major television production company, Desilu Productions. All this during the post World War II years when women were being told to stay home and be happy housewives to make room for returning servicemen in the job market.

Desilu produced I Love Lucy and other TV hits like the Dick Van Dyke Show and Star Trek when Lucy and Desi Arnez were running it together. In 1960, they divorced and two years later she and new husband Gary Morton bought Arnez out, and she managed the company alone for several years.

I have to admit, I’m a closet I Love Lucy fan. When nothing else is on TV and I’m cooking dinner in the kitchen, I can usually find an old episode to watch.

My daughter, who is now 25, was also fascinated with everything Lucy. She collected the Lucy doll set, she owned Lucy memorabilia and calendars. You name it, if it was about Lucy, she had it. I remember one time, I called the Lucille and Desi Center in Jamestown, New York to try and order a difficult to find Lucy item for my daughter’s birthday. I told the woman who answered the phone that my middle-school aged daughter loved Lucille Ball and she said, “You wouldn’t believe how often I hear that. Young girls still love Lucy!”

So, even after all these years, Lucy still has lessons to teach us. She showed us that true talent doesn’t depend on how young you are, or how thin. Although she’s best remembered as a whacky, comical redhead in a 1950’s TV show, Lucille Ball was a true trailblazer, both in comedy and in business.

Lucille Ball’s biography.

I read about two birthdays recently that made me feel nostalgic. Cheerios cereal is now 70 years old the the cleanser, Bon Ami, which was green before it was in to be green, is celebrating it’s 125th birthday. Isn’t it funny that with all the newer, fancier versions of these two products out there, that people still prefer the old standards.

In the days before the thousands of sugary cereals that get kids attention today, Cheerios was one of the staples in our house. According to USA Today, one of every 8 boxes of cereal sold today is still Cheerios. My daughter is 24 now, but when she was a baby, I always kept a baggie full of Cheerios in my purse as a snack and to entertain her when we were out and about. Now my own daughters do the same with their kids. Cheerios are still the go-to snack choice for toddlers.

Of course, over the years, the advertising slant has changed somewhat. now Cheerios are touted as a food to help you lower cholesterol and beloved by mom’s for it’s low sugar content. When Cheerios first came out, nobody thought about such things.

A couple of years ago, we put a new sink in our kitchen and the manufacturer actually recommended Bon Ami as the non-scratch cleaning powder to use. My mom used to use this eco-friendly cleaning powder back before chemicals, when every thing was eco-friendly-we just didn’t know it then. I hadn’t used any in years before the new sink’s appearance but now I’ve converted back to this old standby because I’m trying to use less toxic chemicals around my home.

I’m not the only one either. More and more people are switching back to good old Bon Ami for its lack of harsh chemicals. This 5 generation, family owned company now sports other eco-friendly cleaning products, including dish soap, liquid and powdered cleansers and an all-purpose cleaning spray. This nostalgic company has moved into the future with Facebook fan pages, a newsletter, a community forum and more.

Cheerios has kept up with the times too. The Cheerios website boasts recipes, a coupons and promotions section, mention of a Facebook page and Twitter account.

It does my heart good to see how products from my youth and even further back, have withstood the test of time, despite the fact that “new and improved” products are being invented almost hourly.

The number of years these products have been around, becoming even more popular as the years go on, also illustrates how things come in full circle. When I was a kid, pretty much every cereal was low sugar and good for you and no cleansers had harsh chemicals in them. As I get older, it makes me feel good to know that younger generations have come to value, and even demand, products that don’t destroy our health and our environment.

So Happy Birthday Cheerios and Bon Ami! I hope you’re both around another 70 years and 125 years, respectively. I’m going to head over the the Bon Ami community forum and see if I can find some good cleaning tips.

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Father Knows Best was always one of my favorite TV shows when I was young. I was more like Kathy but I wanted to be Betty. In fact, because of Father Knows Best, I sort of followed Elinor Donahue’s career through her years on Andy Griffith and TV appearances.

Millions of people still do love the uncomplicated world of the Anderson family and I’m expecting a sort of resurgence in interest because on the TV soap Young and the Restless (yes, I admit that watching Y&R is one of my guilty pleasures) two of the main characters are enamoured with Father Knows Best. In fact, they recently went house hunting and the first house they looked at was a replica of the Anderson house that some TV buff had built and furnished to look just like the one on TV.

Some viewers may not have caught it, but when the two characters got married out in front of the house, Elinor Donahue was actually the judge who married them. One of her lines as even “This house reminds me so much of the one I grew up in.”

Father Knows Best began it’s life as a radio show and came to CBS in 1954. Watching the shows now, it’s easy to see that  Springfield, Ohio, insurance agent Jim Anderson (Emmy winner Robert Young) didn’t really have all the answers. He and his wife, Margaret (fellow Emmy winner Jane Wyatt), come close, though.

Back then, the Andersons slept in separate beds and Jim smoked but the family values of the show make it still popular with viewers today. The Season One DVD offers some extras like the special 1959 savings bond episode 24 Hours in Tyrantland and Robert Young’s home movies and rare behind-the-scenes footage, plus interviews with some of the cast members.

You can also watch old Father Knows Best episodes free on Hulu.com. Here’s a link to the first episode.

Those of us who lived in the 50’s will always look back nostalgically at at our childhood years, which seem so simple and uncomplicated by today’s standards. I guess that’s why I love watching Father Knows Best - it always takes me right back to those days.

Every once in a while, a wave of nostalgia hits for the good old days. We were watching Warehouse 13 the other night and two main characters went back in time to the early 60’s, a time of pill box hats and sleek hair-dos (reminding me that the blow dryer was the best thing every invented). A time when women were relegated to the typing pool and called “sweetie” and “honey” by their bosses. Yes, I do get nostalgic for the “old days,” for me the 50’s and 60’s, but sometimes I read a book or see a TV show that makes me remember what it was really like, the good and the bad.

We watched the first season of Mad Men, which I liked because it took place in the 60’s (after the first season we gave up as the show seemed too depressing). In Mad Men we see men drinking and smoking way too much because nobody had ever said these things were bad for you. Heck, even pregnant women were smoking and drinking! People smacked each others kids to discipline them and nobody cared.

From watching Mad Men, you’d think a woman’s only choice was to be a stay at home mom who ended up on a  psychiatrist’s couch, taking Valium and feeling “unfulfilled” or going to work in an office where men talked down to her and treated her like she was part of the entertainment.

I guess I was lucky to be born in 1950. I had the fun of growing up in the 50’s but by the time I was out in the world in 1969, life was changing for women. Reading the book, “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett, brought back some memories of the “good old days” which are thankfully over now.

The Help takes place in 1962, when I was 12, but some of the attitudes of 62 were certainly still around in 1969. In my opinion, the Help is one of the best books to come around in years and I think every woman of every age should read this book to see how far we’ve come since the early 60’s.

My life and Skeeters were very different, but yet there were parallels. She went to college at a time when a woman’s only goal for higher education was to catch a husband. I joined the Navy, which was an odd thing to do at a time when all the males I knew were fighting hard to come up with ways to stay out of Viet Nam but even with Viet Nam, many women joined up to find a husband.

Nowadays, when single women with children or couples with children go off and serve in Iraq and Afghanistan for months at a time, but in the 60’s and 70’s life in the military was much different. Many of the women, sad to say, still joined up to find a husband. Back then, the only way out of the military was to get pregnant and I hate to think how many people are in the world today because their mother wanted out of the service!

Looking back, I’m not sure really why I did join the military. Not patriotism, but more like a yearning for adventure and a desire to experience life outside the little town where I grew up. I used to have “pen pals” among some of the guys fighting in Viet Nam when I was in high school but I’m not sure if I really thought much about that aspect of joining up. I never personally experienced any of the anti-Viet Nam sentiment was because when we wore our uniforms to travel (which we were required to do) everybody thought I was a stewardess. They only wanted flight information, not to hound me about an unpopular war.

Women in the military were supposedly treated equally to men, but back then many jobs were closed to us and we had to work twice as hard as any man in the jobs we had to measure up. A few old Chiefs called us “honey” and we had very, very few roll models for career service women. Many of them were washed out alcoholics that we certainly didn’t emulate.

I was lucky growing up in that my father always told me women could do anything they wanted to do and as a World War II Marine, he totally supported my going into the military. Looking back, I can see my dad was a man way ahead of his time in that aspect.

I try to tell my daughter about life “back then” and how lucky she is to have so many choices in her life. Of course, to her the 50’s and 60’s are ancient history, but I’ve tried to pass on that lesson my dad taught me - she can do anything and be anything.

So, while I enjoy a good book or TV show about the 60’s and the good old days, I think they are best left to our memories of them. In memories, you can choose to remember the good - your favorite 60’s song, an old boyfriend or girlfriend, cruising the strip on Friday nights - and forget the bad - which is - well, I’ve already forgotten! There are a few advantages to getting older - the memory isn’t what it used to be.

I just discovered a terrific website where you can find out, not only what happened in your birth year, but in the decade of your birth. I was born in 1950. All About Eve won best picture, Judy Holliday won best actress for Born Yesterday and Jose Ferrer won best actor for Cyrano de Bergerac.

Beat the Clock and Jack Benny were on TV and the song Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy topped the music charts in my birth year.

The credit card was invented the year I was born too. In the 1950’s people mostly lived on the cash they had, which wasn’t always much but they weren’t in debt either.

In 1950, Snoopy the cartoon character, Jay Leno and Stevie Wonder were born the same year as I was too.

There is some info about the decade of the 50’s too when the economy was on the upswing and the Cold War and Anti-Communism consumed the news.

Reading about what happened in the year and decade I was born brought back some great memories! Not the Cold War part, of course, but looking back, even the Cold War seems kind of tame compared to terrorism. At least we knew who the “enemy” was then.

I look at the 1950’s as the last time of innocence for young people. I was a teen in the 60’s and by the end of that era, there was the Viet Nam War, drugs and a social revolution going on that forever changed that youthful naivete we used to have.

What happened the year you were born? Just click here and type in the year you’d like to revisit.

I was a teenager in the 1960’s and still love listening to the music of the 1960’s. Petula Clark, Herman’s Hermits, Gary Lewis and the Playboys and the Dave Clark Five were some of my favorites back then. I even got to see Gary Lewis and the Playboys in person, wearing my white go go boots, of course!

The late 60’s were a good time to be a teen in a small town. We spent our weekends at the skating rink where they had a dance with a live band from 10pm to midnight. We cruised the strip when gas was still 25 cents a gallon and cigarettes were 25 cents a pack. Smoking was about the worst thing you could do to “rebel” and be cool.

There were a lot of good things about the 1960’s. Back then, we thought there was nothing much to do but looking back on it now, it seems like the last time when kids were allowed to be naive and innocent as they grew up.  Most mothers still stayed home with the kids, my mom made most of my clothes and I actually loved them! No name brands, no expensive toys like iPods and cell phones. We put a dime in our shoe every time we went out so we could always call home for Dad to come and pick us up if we got into trouble.

If you’re feeling nostalgic, you should check out the 1960’s hits on YouTube. Listening to that music takes me right back to those years, which seem to get better and better the older I get.

I loved this video, which covers music from 1965 to 1969, the exact years I was in high school. It shows random images from those years, like album covers, to go along with it.

Enjoy! YouTube also has music videos from other eras too so it’s easy to find your favorite.

My Favorite Reading Among the Boomer Blogs

As a baby boomer myself and the owner of Tips For Your Boomer Years, I love a good boomer blog. I subscribed to Google alerts for “baby boomer” and get a listing of half dozen or so boomer blogs every week. Some are a wealth of great information on retirement, senior discounts, senior and boomer issues and more.

Here are some of my favorite among the popular boomer blogs:

Baby Boomer Insights by Marilynn Mobley. Lots of great articles of interest to boomers - aging, retirement, finding new careers and more.

Baby Boomer.com has a cute feature. You can click on the year you were born and find out what happened. When I was born in 1950, Hopalong Cassidy and antihistamines were newly popular, the movie All About Eve came out and Joseph McCarthy warned of communist infiltration of the State Department - plus there were more great tidbits. One article I liked was “Call us ‘Girls’ or ‘Women over 40′ (or 50), Just Don’t Call Us Seniors!

Boomer Living.com I used to have a blog called Easy Boomer Living and was threatened with a lawsuit by Boomer Living for stealing their name so I had to change my blog to Tips for Boomer Years. However, this boomer blog does have good info on careers, finances, travel, health and more for boomers.

Retrovision TV isn’t a blog in the strictest sense but a listing of classic TV and movies from the 1930’s forward. If you click on an episode listed, you can watch the episode, find links to others in the series, and then comment on it in blog form. If you love classic movies and TV, you have to check out Retrovision.

Time Goes By - Boomer blog with various authors. There are also links on the site to an extensive list of other boomer and elder issue blogs that you might want to explore.

A wonderful boomer blog recommended to me recently by a friend is MyBoomer2Boomer. On this blog boomer entrepreneurs support each other, telling you about boomer friendly businesses, job hunting info and more.

When you start searching boomer blogs, it’s terrific to see how many of us have turned to blogging as a creative expression. It’s great to see boomers and seniors embracing technology and offering up their thoughts, knowledge and experiences to benefit others.

Do you have a favorite boomer blog? If so, send me a link. I’d love to check it out.

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Take Me Back to the Fabulous Fifties

Fabulous Fifties

I grew up in the 1950’s and vividly remember the “fabulous fifties” - drive-in movies, blackjack gum and riding my bike downtown to get a cherry coke for a nickle. A friend sent me this video montage, Take Me Back to the Fifties, and it really did take me back to my childhood.

When we used to go to the dime store, where things really cost a dime, and agonize over which penny candy to get with our allowance, which was, I think a dime. Back when Ricky Nelson was my first crush and I couldn’t wait for Ozzie and Harriet to come on each week.

Visit Old Forty-Fives.com and find montages of growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s, plus Growing up in the Fifties, What we Drove in the 50’s and 60’s, Old Westerns, Do you Remember These, When Life Was Black and White and others that are well worth a trip down memory lane.

Life was simpler in the fabulous fifties - at least for kids. We lived on a farm in Oregon and we could disappear in the morning, going down to the creek near our house, up on the mountain behind our house or take a bike ride downtown. We showed up for lunch, then took off again and my mom never once thought someone would kidnap us. Party lines and one telephone meant we couldn’t talk long to our friends - we’d ride our bikes to visit them instead.

Nobody had much money, our mom made our clothes and canned our food and everybody we knew lived pretty much like us. Nobody’s mom worked and none of my friends parents were divorced. Nobody seemed to worry what kind of education we got and all our free time was “unscheduled.” I know my parents worried a lot about “making ends meet” but living on a farm, we always had good healthy food to eat and healthy air to breathe.

I’d be the first to admit I love my computer with the Internet, connecting with old friends via Facebook, having my cellphone (now with text messaging because all our kids use it!), being able to DVR my favorite TV shows. Still, when I look at my young grandchildren, I feel sorry that they will never know the carefree freedom we had, learning to use their imaginations because that’s the only toys have, being on the run outdoors all day without anyone worrying about them.

I watch the grandchildren glued to videos, unable to go out their front door without supervision, going from activity to activity with no time to just lay out in the grass and watch the cloud shapes take form. I guess that’s why, when either of my 3 year old granddaughters comes to spend time with me, we always sit in the big swing out back and look at the trees and the birds and talk about things.

Just as my own parents were my link to the past which included World War II, the depression and life in the 30’s and 40’s, I guess I’ll be that link for my grandchildren to a simpler time to grow up-life in the Fifties.

Joan’s Boomer Blog - Internet Radio Oldies

Oldies radio shows are disappearing from the airwaves but you can still find Internet radio oldies stations and listen free. Here two new online oldies radio stations I’ve recently discovered.

Alan’s Golden Oldies.

Alan Price is an experienced radio DJ and started his oldies website in 2005. His site streams oldies 24 hours a day and Alan also broadcasts live from 1 to 5 pm weekdays, bringing the audience classic tunes from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.

One thing I like about Alan’s choice of oldies is that there are many you don’t hear anywhere else these days.

Other oldies tidbits you can hear on Alan’s Golden Oldies include:

• Audio from old movie trailers at 330pm Monday through Friday
• Old radio shows like The Adventures of Superman, Amos and Andy or Gunsmoke.
• Promos from stars he’s interviewed over the years like Andy Williams
• Enjoy oldies on your cellphone or PDA

You can also visit Alan’s website to make a special oldies request and view his guest book. Alan’s guestbook includes photos of celebrities from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s with their autographs written to him. See Fabion, Dick Clark and Dick and Dee to name just a few.

I like to tune in to Alan’s Golden Oldies while I’m working. It makes terrific background music for writing a boomer blog!

Another new-to-me Internet radio oldies show is Beyond 50’s Radio, where host Daniel Davis offers interviews on topics of interest to baby boomers, plus a free Beyond 50’s newsletter which keeps you posted on upcoming programs of interest.

If you go to the website you can also listen to past episodes through the archives. Programs include diabetes and accelerated aging, Warren Buffet’s Successful Management Techniques, Map and Plan your Volunteer Vacation and other topics of interest to baby boomers.

More Links to Internet Radio Oldies

Television 1980′2 - Enjoy Remington Steele Onine

I don’t consider television of the 1980’s to be true nostalgic TV since I was born in the 1950’s, but Remington Steele still enjoys a large following 30 years after it’s original broadcast from 1982-1987.

Remington Steele stared Pierce Brosnan as a rogish con man and Stephanie Zimbalist as a private detective. In the 1980’s I was in the Navy, stationed in Rota, Spain, and the only television we got to watch was Armed Forces TV. Remington Steele was one of the programs offered and I loved it back then. In fact, my daughter Laura, who was born in Spain, was named for the Stephanie Zimbalist character, Laura Holt.

I always thought Stephanie Zimbalist was cute and perky and I enjoyed the shows she was in at the time. I’m not sure now why I named my daughter Laura and not Stephanie but her name still brings up memories of sitting in our duty room at the Naval Hospital watching those Remington Steele episodes.

Recently, I started looking for places to see those nostalgic episodes again. They are still funny and offbeat, even today. I can even almost forgive Pierce Brosnan for his singing in Momma Mia when I see the dashing Remington Steele again.

If you’d like to watch Remington Steele videos online you can catch Seasons 1-5 at:

Hulu.com - Many people today are opting not to have cable or satelite TV and watching television, nostalgic and new at Hulu for free. Hulu offers 60 episodes of Remington Steele. Sign up is free.

Netflix offers Seasons 1-5 of Remington Steele which you can watch instantly on your computer. Netflix is a monthly subscription website but the lowest package starts at

t starred Stephanie Zimbalist as private detective Laura Holt and Pierce Brosnan as a roguish former white-collar thief and con man who assumed the fictitious Remington Steele identity. The show took an offbeat approach to the standard TV detective genre, with ironic plotting and elements of romantic comedy.

Keep up with the latest in nostalgic TV by getting a free email subscription to Retrovision TV