MSN now has a new lifestyle page for Baby Boomers and I thought I'd take a look because I'm supposed to be one.

I was immediately horrified, coming face to face with a gray, mustachioed Dick Van Dyke.

Help me please, I am not one of you.

I used to watch that show when I was kid.
The best episode: when Laura Petri got her big toe stuck in the bathtub faucet. Because of that show, I never put my toes anywhere near a spigot. (See how educational television is?)

So I checked out Wikipedia to see who the baby boomers really are.

The explanation reads like some kind of rocket science. There are Baby Boomer #1s, those born between 1946 -1954; and Baby Boomer #2s (1955 to 1963) also known as Shadow Boomers; not to be confused with the children of Baby Boomers, Echo Boomers.

The defining moment for all 80 million of us, it said, was the Vietnam War, and the new generation of thought that blasted forth.

The blast was short-lived and seemed to take an about face.

According to Wikepedia:

Many boomers focus desperately on the successes and failures of their children.

The generation's tendency is to regulate personal behavior (as in alcohol, drug use, and the content of cultural creations)in a way sterner than that of the "uptight" adults that boomers knew during the Consciousness Revolution. As an example, boomers have been in the forefront of efforts to attack the pathologies (drunk driving, domestic abuse) of drunkenness and drug use. Boomer prosecutors have shown unusual willingness to impose severer sentences on criminal offenders, including "three strikes" laws and the death penalty.

Boomers have played a strong role in attempts to make America more overtly religious. Many have turned to fundamentalist Christianity as a solution to what they see as social rot. Thus, one finds a rise in creationist dogma and the promotion of prayer in public schools to an extent not known since the time of the Scopes Trial.

"Who am I?" someone screamed through my head, reverberating like a super ball.


MSN further divided boomers into categories: the Easy Glider takes each day as it comes; the Adventurer makes daring changes with his or her life; the Continuer continues to use existing skills, interests and activities but modifies them to fit retirement; the Searcher tries out different careers or hobbies to find something that will bring him or her happiness; the Involved Spectator cares deeply about the world, however, because of illness or other circumstances, they are not as involved as they used to be; and the Retreater, the only negative category, is confused and upset about retirement.

I hope someone figures out soon who those of us in the latter part of this generation are supposed to be.

I'm waiting............