Boomer Boners

When and how did you most recently date yourself?

I suppose it's predictive that the further I move into Act Three, the more I'll be dating myself. I'm grateful my thirty-something daughter and her thirty-something husband are usually kind when my boomer boners don't ring the faintest bell. Even my oldest niece - who turned fifty last November - usually lets me slide when I reference an actor, musician, or author who had their heyday in the 60s or 70s, never to be seen or heard from again. Bless her heart.

I've found I'm usually on safe ground mentioning boomer film or pop music figures who have managed to hang in there past their sell by date, e.g., Al Pacino or Paul McCartney. But those who haven't made it into People magazine for twenty+ years, no matter their previous level of notoriety? Boomer boner territory. With respect to authors closely associated with the peak boomer years, in my experience, that's fuzzier. 

When speaking to a Gen X or millennial reader, I might be OK casually dropping an author name here or there, especially when the work of that author had a place in Gen X or millennial school curricula, e.g., Harper Lee or Toni Morrison. And because literature is arguably less ephemeral than film and clearly less so than pop music or TV, boomer boners tend to be less frequent when I speak of authors, Arthur Hailey and James Michener aside.   

Still, a word of caution to my fellow boomers. There are many ways aside from references to actors, pop musicians, or authors to find yourself stuck in the boomer boner time warp. Rabbit ears, anyone? Penpals? Eight-tracks? Like it or not - and I don't - it's going to get more difficult as we old farts move deeper into Act Three. I'm already mulling over future conversations with my grandson. How do I explain to him why anyone ever had to give directions to someone else?