First thing: don't call us seniors

I haven't yet arrived at the category we used to call "old people" and then, "senior citizens." I'll be there soon enough. But I'm relieved to say that even when I reach that magical plateau, I won't have to acknowledge that I'm old and in the way because, well, I won't be old and I won't be hanging out at home or some stodgy senior center.

Here's a snippet from today's Casper Star-Tribune:

Wayne Clements, executive director of Central Wyoming Senior Services, said... "Boomers aren't going to want to participate in the senior center the way this one is. The boomers are different," he said. "They are very well educated and will want to continue their education and will want to work longer. They may not want to come here for lunch and visit for hours." Murdock said some boomers suggested they didn't want to go somewhere called the "senior center" because they simply don't want to admit they are "seniors".

A shrink might put that in the category of denial. I'm not old because I say so. So don't call me a "senior," you little whippersnapper.

Baby Boomers continue their obnoxious ways. I am one so I can say that. "Annoying Since 1946," could be the motto on our T-shirts. Millions of babies were born in the post-war era, which stretches from 1946-64. All but one of my eight brothers and sisters were born in that span, beginning with me in 1950. My parents were champs at adding babies to the boom, and now we all face the same fate: growing old and dying. Except we don't want to.

This is not solely a Boomer phenomenon. I know a lot of people in the 70s and 80s who are very active. Bill, a WWII vet, walks everywhere in Cheyenne and, up until last year when he had some health problems, would randomly pick a spot on the globe and traveled there for a month. The most passionate members of our local YMCA are the Active Older Adults who prefer to be called AOA, just as the American Association of Retired Persons now just use its initials, AARP, or I guess you could call it an acronym if you think of "Arp" as a word. (One book that treats "Arp" as a word is "The World According to Garp," when Garp, the dying tailgunner, loses the letters of his last name as he exits the world.)

But we Boomers have the numbers and will be around for a long time, possibly forever. We might want to change that Boomer T-shirt to read "Annoying from 1946 -Infinity."