Boomers

If nuns can fly, can a rabbi be a talk-show host? WWDB-AM (860) radio is betting that Richard Address, senior clergy at Cherry Hill's M'Kor Shalom, has the chops to attract a coveted audience: baby boomers. And not just the Jewish ones. (Address goes by Richard on the program.) Boomer Generation Radio , which debuted in February, aims to address the unique concerns of the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. The first wave is already careening through their mid-60s, joining Medicare, maybe applying for Social Security - all the while caring for their children, possibly looking after grandchildren, and, more often than not, taking care of an elderly parent.

Whether you're moving, remodeling or staying put, planning a retirement home is an opportunity to create a personal environment that takes into account your future accessibility, safety and financial needs. And, experts say, there is no reason to forget style. Accessibility concerns - whether because of aging or physical limitations - are part of Valarie Costanzo's practice as a real estate agent for Prudential Fox & Roach in Rittenhouse Square and Haddonfield. Costanzo, 57, began concentrating on the accessibility niche after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis two years ago. She began helping MS Society clients in search of affordable handicapped-modified housing.

Sixty years ago, when World War II ended, veterans were welcomed home with open arms by their parents and grandparents. In the early 1950s, the nation began the serious business of building homes, schools, roads, and water and sewer systems to serve them and their young families. The baby boomers, the children of the veterans, were the beneficiaries of their investments in the future. Yet 50 years later, we, the boomers, seem unwilling to continue their commitment to a better tomorrow.

WASHINGTON - Feel like the office geezer? Age may be an asset at work, or no issue at all, according to an AP-LifeGoesStrong.com poll. Nearly half of those born between 1946 and 1964 now work for a younger boss, and most report that they are older than most colleagues. But 61 percent of the baby boomers surveyed said that their age is not an issue at work, while 25 percent called it an asset. Only 14 percent classified getting older as a workplace liability. In fact, most of those who have reached age 50 noted that co-workers seek their counsel more now than when they were younger.

We respond to "Baby-boom retirement crisis feared" (April 11) by John McGregor of The Inquirer's Washington Bureau. In the year 2025, when half of the baby boomers have retired, the children of these 60-year-olds will be members of the Supreme Court. Keep in mind now that these justices will have grown up in an era when abortion was acceptable for financial reasons, or simply because it is a free choice. We are sure that one of those fine justices will declare euthanasia constitutional.

After the 1984 election, it became a cliche among political experts to say that baby boomers - Americans who are now 23 to 41 years old - were conservative on economic issues and liberal on social issues. Thus both parties would face the challenge of appealing to a large group of voters who were not receptive to the traditional liberalism of the Democrats or the conservatism of the Republicans. More recently, a revisionist view has arisen. Many political observers say that the boomers aren't so different after all and that they don't seem to be voting as a bloc or gravitating to a particular candidate.

There it was, in the New York Times, a photograph to bring a shiver to the bravest of the brave. Assembled for some do of the rich and worthless were Sean Ono Lennon, looking geeky; his mother, the dread Yoko; Jann Wenner, terrible-tempered publisher of Rolling Stone, the irrelevant but very profitable magazine; and Tina Brown, editor of the New Yorker and friend to Eurotrash and American Eurotrash wannabes. It was illustrating a think piece about baby boomers' reactions to the news that a baby boomer had been elected president.

If you're a senior citizen, you can expect discounts at movie theaters, restaurants or even some retail stores. But if you're a middle-aged person with a mortgage and a child in college and another one in braces, you get zilch out of the discount department. That's among the beefs of a national organization recently formed to help promote the interests of baby boomers. Yes, that's right, that trend-setting group of Americans who were born between 1946 and 1964 have formed their own advocacy group - the American Association of Boomers.

In this, the first year that baby boomers will turn 50, it is not too soon to think about yet another major adjustment in the U.S. economy. Having spawned Dr. Spock, the construction of thousands of schools, rock 'n' roll, blue jeans and now stomach-acid inhibitors, the boomers will soon lift and enrich another industry: retirement communities in Florida. People don't just retire to neighborhoods down there, they retire to "adult communities," self-contained developments enclosed by walls with some common characteristics: Little guardhouses, minibuses to take the residents shopping and a few clubhouses; walls that, like much of the clothing people wear, come in pastel shades; a generic name, usually made up of three geographical elements, one of which is generally Florida-related, like "sand" or "coral" or "palm," and the others of more generic features, like "lake" or "ridge.

Remember the first time bell-bottoms were "in," when Mick Jagger - now a grandpa - was a young hellion, and dating wasn't dangerous? If so, you likely have little patience for smoky clubs and bars with paint- peeling music that cater to rowdy 21-year-olds. You're not alone. As the population gets older, club owners realize they need to provide alternative forms of entertainment in an effort to appeal to aging - but still hip (of course) - baby boomers. One place that has long attracted that crowd is the Dead Dog Saloon (39th Street and Landis Avenue, Sea Isle City; 609-263-1500)

NEW YORK - Baby boomers preparing for retirement are driving a surge in small-business sales, as they find more and more buyers confident enough in the improving economy to expand their own businesses through acquisitions. In the first three months of this year, the number of sales that closed jumped 56 percent from the same time in 2012, according to BizBuySell.com, an online marketplace for small businesses. Retirement was the No. 1 contributor to business sales in the fourth quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013, according to a survey by Pepperdine University and two trade groups, the International Business Brokers Association and M&A Source.

If nuns can fly, can a rabbi be a talk-show host? WWDB-AM (860) radio is betting that Richard Address, senior clergy at Cherry Hill's M'Kor Shalom, has the chops to attract a coveted audience: baby boomers. And not just the Jewish ones. (Address goes by Richard on the program.) Boomer Generation Radio , which debuted in February, aims to address the unique concerns of the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. The first wave is already careening through their mid-60s, joining Medicare, maybe applying for Social Security - all the while caring for their children, possibly looking after grandchildren, and, more often than not, taking care of an elderly parent.

NEW YORK - She was the first crush for a generation of boys, the perfect playmate for a generation of girls. Annette Funicello, who became a child star as a Mouseketeer on "The Mickey Mouse Club" in the 1950s, ruled among baby boomers, who tuned in every weekday afternoon to watch her on their black-and-white television sets. Then they shed their mouse ears, as Annette did when she teamed up with Frankie Avalon during the '60s in a string of frothy, fun-in-the-sun movies with titles like "Beach Blanket Bingo.

  PERHAPS THE next big thing that the U.S. Supreme Court should undertake, after marriage equality, is the issue that plagues boomers like myself whose generational identity is eternally affiliated with youth and revolution: How old is too old? In this new world, what is the end parameter of our shelf life? The recent retirement of the pope and New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg in quick succession had bad news and good news for boomers like myself and other youthful seniors who are grappling with notions of old age. Pope Benedict XVI's radical decision to step down at age 85 suggests that we all have an expiration date, and despite current evidence to the contrary - We still go to work!

The early days of my life as a real estate writer were dominated by a number of issues, notably "active-adult" housing. In the 1960s, these were called retirement communities, and they were in Arizona and Florida. Grandma and Grandpa moved there and played golf every day. The first time I wrote about it, an editor asked whether "inactive adult" housing was what was found at Laurel Hill Cemetery, especially at those marble mausoleums overlooking Kelly Drive at Hunting Park Avenue.

WHEN I HEARD that Sally Starr had died, I thought of my father, Phil, himself gone 14 years next month. I thought of his reaction when, in the summer of 1984, I announced that I was hoping to bring "Our Gal Sal" - who hadn't been heard from for 12 years - back to Philly as a way to publicize the RV Roundup, a recreational-vehicle exhibition scheduled for the old Civic Center that September. I was public-relations director for a Center City ad agency whose clients included the Roundup.

It was a moment to note when Leo J. Scoda told Phoenixville Borough Council on Tuesday - the day after his 71st birthday - that he would not seek reelection later this year to a fifth four-year term as mayor. This is a year for milestones for Scuda, who is marking his 50th anniversary as tennis coach at Phoenixville High School, a job he took when he became a science teacher in 1963. That was the fall that he moved to town, after earning a bachelor's in biology at Pennsylvania State University.

Philadelphia could hardly be called a fast-growing region. Indeed, a recent Brookings Institution study of the performances of the top 100 U.S. metropolitan areas since the recession ended ranked the greater Philadelphia region 99th. Yet this area is well-positioned to become world class if it can take advantage of the big trends that will drive future economic activity. The region's recent economic performance has been sad. We were 84th in output growth, 90th in employment gains and housing-price growth, and 94th in reducing unemployment.

Sue Edwards sent me an e-mail recently that ended with this sentence: "I don't want all of the women out there who are in the baby-boom generation to start taking drugs when there is an alternative. " Edwards, 65, of Swarthmore, a retired education specialist, who volunteers for the Sierra Club, has always tried to exercise and stay active. In her 20s, she jogged. She worked out with Jane Fonda videos. During the summers, she swam. When she was a preschool teacher, she got plenty of exercise trying to keep pace with her active charges.

CLEVELAND - John Wise watched a tear roll down his wife's face as he stood alongside her bed in the intensive care unit. She had been unable to speak after suffering a stroke and seemed to be blinking to acknowledge him, Wise confided to a friend who had driven him to the hospital. The couple had been married 45 years, and Wise, 66, told his friend that they had agreed long ago they didn't want to live out their years bedridden and disabled. So a week after Barbara Wise's stroke, investigators say, her husband fired a single round into her head.