I dispute the claim that all Tea Partiers are Baby Boomers -- and vice versa

A few weeks ago on Keith Olbermann's show, comedian and political commentator Christian Finnegan has a comment about members of the Tea Party Movement. It went something like this: "Teabaggers are a bunch of Baby Boomers scared that the world has passed them by."

I took umbrage with this. Normally umbrage is the last thing I take with the proceedings on Keith's show. I'm yelling at my flat-screen TV: "Yeah, Keith, go baby go!" Sometimes I'm yelling at Keith's guests: "Yeah [guest's name], go baby go."

But I had to chew on Finnegan's comment. As I've said on these pages before -- I'm a Baby Boomer who's a bit scared that the world has passed me by. I'm chewing though my 60th year on Planet Earth. I'm not overly scared about this world-passing-me-by-thingy -- but I do have some suspicions.

I'm a writer and I work in the field of arts administration. I could easily be an accountant like my father or a nurse like my mother or a machinist like one of my brothers or a postal delivery person like another one of my brothers. I'd have a lot more job security if I had chosen a more practical field. But I drifted into my career through stints in print journalism and corporate PR. If I had stayed in any of those fields, I'd probably be unemployed now. I could have fallen into other careers or other jobs. But here I am, an aging English major Baby Boomer who wants nothing to do with the Tea Party.

So note to Christian Finnegan: Baby Boomers come in all shapes and sizes and political persuasions. Just like you and your fellow Gen-Ys or Gen-Xs or Gen-Zs (how old are you anyway?).

Yes, it does appear that Tea Party demonstrators tend to be white and male and rotund. That could easily describe me, although I like to think that I'm not rotund but slightly overweight. I am white, with a Celt's traditional array of freckles. I'm male, and have been for almost 60 years. I'm a member of the Baby Boomer generation, one of the most annoying cohorts in U.S. history.

But not a member of the Tea Party.

I drink coffee.