Joan’s Boomer Blog

Joan’s Boomer Blog - Your Know You’re Getting Old When……

There are some moments in life when the fact that you’re getting older kind of slaps you in the face (besides

Our daughter's first house

the times you look at that face in the mirror and suddenly notice a new sag or wrinkle!) For my husband and I, one of those senior moments came this past weekend when our youngest daughter purchased her first home and we helped her move in. When someone you thought of as your baby suddenly morphs into a homeowner, pride is mixed with the feeling of time passing quickly.

The second part of the getting older came from the physical helping with her move! After a weekend of cleaning, moving furniture and cleaning up a yard that hadn’t been cleaned up in over a year, we’re left feeling stiff, old and like we want to spend the day in bed with a bottle of Bio-Freeze.

Still and all, besides feeling we’ll like we’ll never move again without pain in forgotten muscles and joints, there is such a feeling of gratification to see our youngest in this new light. Our youngest daughter has always had her life together, unlike her parents who were children of the 60’s where peace and love solved all problems and we never thought of investing our money for retirement, but the the role of “homeowner” is reserved for true adults. We’re just not yet used to seeing her that way.

Our daughter, Laura, was Valedictorian of her high school class, went to college to study architecture and played softball at a Division one school for 4 years. Now that she’s employed with an architecture firm, she’s decided she wants to also buy houses to rent out and her first purchase was a home of her own.

Prices are great right now in Texas for buying homes and the homebuyer’s tax credit is also a bonus.

Laura is also six years younger than her next oldest sister, while the first three daughters are closer in age. All three of them have married and have small children, two of them are consumed right now with newborn daughters.

Laura has always trailed her sisters in everything. When they were in high school having boyfriends and going to dances, she was in elementary and middle school - a world away. When they were getting married and having kids, she was in college, consumed with books and softball. While her sisters talked about child rearing problems and getting along with husbands, Laura lived her own life in a different realm.

Now that Laura too is a homeowner, it’s cute to suddenly see the conversations turning to where to get the best prices on furniture, how to do home repairs and which Internet provider is she going to use.

When I told my own mother that Laura was buying a house, she said “All by herself?!” When Laura met her new neighbor, a lady in her 60’s, her first question was “Do you have any kids?” It makes you see how far women have come since my own growing up in the 50’s. Young women aren’t waiting for marriage for their “real life” to begin. They are stepping out, buying homes, investing, having careers.

So-even though this past weekend gave me a real “I’m getting older” moment, it’s worth it to see this great time in my daughter’s life. Buying this house launched her into the adult world of giving up all her weekends to yard work-lol.

Getting older can be tough on baby boomers but watching the youngsters going through all the things we once went through also makes us appreciate this time of our lives, when all the ups and downs and drama of life is mostly behind us and hopefully we can think “I’m kind of glad I’m the age I am now!”

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Who is John Galt? Get Your T Shirt & Bumper Sticker Today

Who is John Galt? This is the opening line of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged and throughout the book, this question is asked and that question is being asked again today when we could use a  John Galt. I read Atlas Shrugged many years ago and over those years, it has popped into my head hundreds of times. What’s funny is that I’ve begun seeing “Who is John Galt?” bumper stickers and t shirts popping up too.

Written in 1957, Atlas Shrugged asks the question “What if all the creative minds went on strike?” As socialism and socialistic ideas destroyed people and society, it stole people’s will to take care of themselves and turned them into users, always demanding more from those providing it. The individual capitalist, the businessman is used to support the rotten system but reviled and hated at the same time.  John Galt steps in and persuades the thinkers, the businessmen and the doers to just leave and let the system fall so they can step back in and rebuild it.

Ayn Rand grew up in Russia during the Revolution and saw the rise of Communism there. Her books, like Atlas Shrugged, the Fountainhead and We the Living, all grew out of her experiences and her belief in Capitolism. If you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged, I’d highly recommend it. See if you can find parallels to our life today.

The first time I saw a “Who is John Galt” bumper sticker, I couldn’t help thinking how relevant that question is today. My next thought was “I want a John Galt bumper sticker AND a John Galt t shirt.” Strangely enough, a good friend of mine sent me a link to the John Galt Gift Store.

This website offers John Galt t shirts, John Galt bumper stickers and anything John Galt, as well as memorabilia for other Ayn Rand books such as the Fountainhead and We the Living. You can get a Reardon Steel t shirt or a Howard Roark t shirt.

Reading all the quotes on the t shirts and bumper stickers, brought back memories of what I liked about Ayn Rand’s books. My daughter is an architect so she’s getting a Howard Roark t shirt that says, “The question is not who is going to let me, but who is going to stop me.”

If you remember John Galt, check out the John Galt Gift Store.

I used to love the Donna Reed show. Shelly Fabres was about 4 years older than I was and I wanted to be just like her. When she sang Johnny Angel, it was one of my favorite episodes. Since it’s the holiday season and nostalgic TV shows are on every list, I wanted to give you this link to The Donna Reed Christmas Show from 1960. You can watch this episode free on Retrovision.tv.

In this episode, Donna is tired of her family caring more for presents than the spirit of Christmas. We like to think things were different in “the old days” but were they really? I remember a similar old TV show from Father Knows Best in the 1950’s which dealt with the same Christmas theme.

Another nostalgic Christmas episode from an old TV show now on Retrovision is the Bewitched episode “A Vision of Sugar Plums” from 1962. This was the show’s first Christmas episode and stars Billy Mummy, along with Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York.

I love watching these old Christmas episodes at this time of year and make it one of my holiday traditions.