Word: boomerism
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...want a glimpse of the boomer future that you'll never see in the ads for Brighton Gardens or MapleRidge (knowingly ironic boomer question: Where do they come up with these names?), travel instead to Rochester, Minn., and the Mayo Clinic. In Dr. Darryl Chutka's classroom, the 10 first-year medical students look a little different from what you might expect. They're all wearing goggles coated in a clear film, ear plugs, heavy rubber gloves, extra-thick socks. They also have marshmallows stuffed in their mouths, corn kernels scattered inside their shoes, stiff, confining braces around their necks...
That's you, Mr. and Mrs. Boomer. The good news is that you will be retiring younger than your parents and living longer than them too; in fact, if you started your career at 23, are one of the few sufficiently well off to be able to retire at 55, and live to be 90, you will spend more than half your adulthood in retirement--an unprecedented reconfiguration of life's traditional arc. But in what physical condition will you spend those years? And with what financial resources will you be able to finance them...
...take on a shape we've never seen before. Based on its research, Del Webb already outfits its new houses with high-capacity wiring for home offices and offers options such as home exercise rooms. Integrated computer, security and entertainment systems will be the next must-haves in boomer retirement housing...
...even if we're living the high life in Maple Boomer Retirement Ridge Heaven, don't expect us to mellow much, to lessen our demands, our insistent wish that the world pay attention to us, us, us!!! In a Del Webb survey of boomer attitudes, respondents said their greatest contribution in retirement will include "demanding funding for medical research." The red ribbon for AIDS and the pink ribbon of breast cancer will be replaced by gray ribbons of gerontology...
...calls Social Security "the mother of all Ponzi schemes"). Those two are either going to have to work a lot harder to support all the old folks, or we will see a spectacle of misery unprecedented in the world's wealthiest nation. Two irrefutable facts, the size of the boomer generation and the tendency of the elderly to vote in greater percentages than any other age group, will converge to create a daunting political force...