Some Hot Advice to Baby Boomers: Staying young forever is definitely not cool

Thanks to the advent of electronic media (invented in the last century), and of language, (a couple of thousand years ago), the 21st Century will never be as vague a period as say the third Egyptian dynasty or the Byzantine Empire. But it's fairly certain that ten or twenty years from now it'll be the Baby Boomers who will be called on to recount their stories of the 60s Civil Rights movement, the Kennedys, Motown music, stick-shift cars and sex before AIDs, the same way those Depression era kids still talk about World War II like it just happened.

In another decade or two it'll be those credit-chomping, hedonistic Baby Boomers who are the elders of our global village; not the penny-pinching old folk born before 1930 whose motto was get-by, make-do and save ten-cents out of every dollar for a rainy day. Although anyone born after 1960 may not realize it, it was that generation who gave Baby Boomers of all races their jump-start on fair employment, voting rights, equal education and a plethora of other privileges we and all other subsequent generations enjoy.

Now that the 1900s have officially passed into the status of the good old days, I am frankly worried that Baby Boomers may not know how to handle the awesome responsibility of upholding history. I know entirely too many Boomers who refuse to get old, completely unmindful that the 60s took place nearly fifty years ago. The only way they are going to relate history to younger generations is from the prespective of an outside observer. Or as a colorful embellishment of their own lives and careers.

I talk to young people today who have never heard any of the time-honored expressions of my childhood, those quaint old sayings that were thick as molasses with meaning. I recently discovered that, although most Boomers are too busy to share them, those old barnyard philosophies brought up from the south by our grand- and great-grandmothers still sticks with youth today. Advice like "Birds of a feather, flock together," "A dog who brings a bone will carry it," or, "Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free" is as fresh to the hip hop nation today as a new pair of designer athletic shoes.

What Baby Boomers don't seem to appreciate is that getting old is 21st Century chic. Trying to stay young forever is what is definitely very uncool. Unfortunately I see too many signs of Boomers trying to stop the clock to feel optimistic about the immediate future of middle class philanthropy. Take one of my girlfriends, for instance. She has had more cosmetic surgery than most folks have had vacations and she cares more about her fingernails than she does the working poor. She cares for no one other than herself.

And I see aging Boomers every day dressing like they just stepped out of a funky music video. Or a Sean John commercial.

I know a number of middle-aged men who, under their god, Viagra, worship at the altar of Tae Bo. And ladies who think that buying Oprah can really help them.

Finally, I just wanna know, just how many sets of gold golf clubs is it going to take for some guys to feel good about themselves? I just don't know what kind of a world it will be in the second quarter of the 21st century if 70-million Baby Boomers insist on hogging the spotlight instead of focusing it on the world's theater of concerns and problems.

Across the country, schools are screaming for retiring Baby Boomers to return to the classroom as mentors and volunteers. Throughout the city, community services cry out for modern equipment and experts to train their aging all-volunteer staff.

In practically every neighborhood there are incubator high-tech multi-media companies (mostly founded and run by Xers and the Hip Hop Nation) that are begging for capital infusions. Yet, for Baby Boomers, easily the most pampered generation in the history of the world, volunteerism and charitable donations, according to the most recent studies, are going down.

With "Forever Young" as their anthem, I am worried that too many Boomers are forfeiting their rightful place in history as the historians of the old days--the 1900s--and as the great philanthropists of the 21st Century. Most Boomers I know are totally preoccupied with turning back the clock on their youth, or they're investing fortunes into trying to erase the aging process entirely. [To hell with succeeding generations that hunger for their knowledge.]

Since this subject is rarely talked about in polite company, I realize that that the concept of hedonistic selfishness due to the natural aging process may not sit well with many graying Boomers. Many, I suspect, will be in such a state of denial, so out of touch with reality, that they won't recognize the unsettling truth -- that they are Baby Boom Bummers. That's right; they are bumming a ride through life on the past glory, the laurels and accomplishments of their entire generation. Boomer Bummers are living proof that some people never grow up. Holding grudges they worked up in 1984, Boomer Bummers have every plan to take their silly selfishness to the grave.

I am hoping that this little slap of reality will cause a buzz among Bummers; maybe even cause a backlash. I can't tell you how much I love to stand corrected. Meanwhile, however, until I'm disproved, I have identified at least 21 signs that someone you know may be a Baby Boom Bummer. Stay tuned!!!