Boomers

You were expecting maybe Lawrence Welk? This month, AARP launched a streaming Internet radio service on its website that's designed to help the organization's gray and graying membership stay clued in about what's happening in popular music. And the surprising thing about the 18-channel service, which is free for members and nonmembers at www.AARP.org , is that it's by no means merely a stodgy service meant to soothe senior citizens as they ease their way into a Sinatrian senescence.

Dusk was settling in as five women began their ramble down a country road and around a small lake. The walk was initially silent and contemplative, yet still remarkably companionable. After some stretching and deep breathing, the women made their way to life coach Patricia Osborne's Medford house, nestled in the woods. There was a pause for wine and cheese, and then the gathering's most important element - conversation. The women, part of a group that labels itself "Boomer Chicks," were ending a series of monthly gatherings that had begun in January to explore more of what it means to be part of that vast bulge in the population born between 1946 and 1963.

NEW YORK - Baby boomers are swelling the ranks of online dating sites, and John Valentino is a happy veteran. At 57, after a decade of pushing profiles and awkward meet-ups with strangers, he's married to 54-year-old year Debbie, a former Marine he met online two years ago. "I had plenty of lemons before lemonade, believe me," said Valentino, a furniture salesman in Long Branch, N.J. One prospect said he was too old. Another went out...

WASHINGTON - Baby boomers facing retirement are worried about their finances, and many believe that they will need to work longer than planned or will never be able to retire, according to a poll released last month. The 76 million-strong generation born between 1946 and 1964 has clung tenaciously to its youth. Now, boomers are getting nervous about retirement. Only 11 percent of those polled said they were strongly convinced that they would be able to live in comfort. Fifty-five percent said they were somewhat or very certain that they could retire with financial security.

It hasn't been the best of times for Americans on the verge of retirement. The economy has not been kind. In 2008 and 2009, for example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that one-quarter of people in the 45 to 54 age bracket filed for unemployment benefits. If you are out of work, struggling to make ends meet, it's tough to save the zillion dollars that financial planners contend retirees will need to live comfortably. The housing market has been even less kind, both to retirees and builders of the homes they have long expected aging boomers to buy. Here's the problem.

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.

OK, boomers: How do you know you've become your parents? When you look at the lengthy lineup of music specials that PBS (and, locally, WHYY-TV12) is tossing out as lures for its March Madness fundraising campaign, and most of 'em make you smile and say, "Wow, they're finally on my wavelength. " As a rule, PBS skews older in demographic appeal than the average TV network, getting the bulk of its fundraising bucks from folks in the 50-plus and even 60-plus demographics. That's why you used to see so many fund-drive specials built around doo-wop acts of the '50s and '60s, or those bubbly Champagne Music Makers of "The Lawrence Welk Show.

A lot of home builders once assumed there would be a bottomless market of baby boomers for their over-55 communities. You could see the dollar signs in their eyes every time they happened on one of the 79 million Americans born between 1945 and 1964. Demographers admonished them not to lump all boomers together, noting that a large segment hadn't gone to Ivy League schools or become corporate lawyers. Some, it turns out, actually worked for a living, or didn't, or lived from paycheck to paycheck, or saw their high-paying jobs outsourced to cheap labor markets and now were working at fast-food outlets.

Uneasiness is keeping some aging baby boomers in their current homes, even though that's not what they had in mind. As Realtor Allan Domb, who sells condos in Center City, sees it, "The decline in prices in the suburbs appears to be keeping a lot of aging boomers . . . from selling and moving to something befitting their changed lifestyle. " That, and "general uncertainty over the economy and personal finances, and a desire to see house/condo prices bottom before making a move," said Philadelphia economist Kevin Gillen, vice president at Econsult Corp.

A NUMBER OF years ago, I was Cordelia Chisholm, enraged by the ugly nihilism of our disrespectful youth and was caught in a reckless moment pulling out my registered gun as a warning to two thugs on a crowded SEPTA bus who bragged about having spit on an Asian man. With the loudness that seems to typify these idiots, their serenade of violence was just too much to put up with. Then as now, with Ms. Chisholm pulling out her .38 Special to quiet a woman who was talking too loud on the bus, my actions were stupid and dangerous to everyone involved.