When there’s no one else to trust, trust boomers. What have you got to lose?

‘Mid-century modern‘ is such a design craze, what’s more mid-century than baby boomers.

We’ve done the things that nostalgia looks back on, listened to classic rock the first time around, and made it out in one piece.

What more could you want?

We’ve heard the knock on the door, listened to the fat lady sing, but we’re still around. Not the biggest generation anymore thanks to millennials, but we’re here.

For some of us the check engine light came on when we started pushing sixty, but like the troopers we are, we persist.

We’re senior citizens now, at least some of us, but not the same senior as years past.

Everyone in the last century didn’t work in resource extraction like coal mining and logging, but those who did put in twenty years, collected a gold watch, bought a rocking chair for the back porch and took a seat.

After WWII and the efficiency of the supply lines, a craze for processed food took hold, so old timers had even more time for the porch.

After the nutritious breakfast in a mug came a fast food lunch followed by a Hungry Man chicken dinner from Swanson for more time to rock it out.

Boomers met their relatives in those chairs, elderly at fifty, gone by sixty.

We followed the Greatest Generation who saved the world from fascism, communism, and creeping socialism.

Former Italian leaders displayed for public viewing.

The ‘hurry up and wait’ cadence of the war years was replaced by slow decades of mill work, factory work, and the success of moving to the suburbs for a house with a yard.

And room for little baby boomers, their precious off-spring.

We followed the Silent Generation of the Korean War years that set the table for the Vietnam intervention.

My dad shipped out to Korea with WWII veterans recalled to serve after five years out and a normal life. He said the young guys like him were fired up and anxious to join the battle; he said the older guys were crying.

My dad came back after a harrowing time running Korean ridges. He met his younger brother just before he went to Korea. I wonder what advice he shared.

My mom said he spent the first year back waking up at night screaming about human wave attacks and ambushes.

That was their mid-century modern life, and another reason to trust boomers. We saw the future.

Boomers Love Mid-Century Design

1950s Vintage Eames Seafoam Green Rope Edge Zenith Dax Chair: $3,000

We sat in the formed fiberglass chairs on hot days and sweated it out. When we stood up we left a small pool of sweat in the seat and our pants looked like we peed in them.

No thanks.

We sat in over-stuffed chairs so nasty and sticky that we smelled like cats for days after and picked hair out of our clothes for even longer.

We know what we like. More important, we know what you like:

Who doesn’t love a little electric blue velvet pulling a room together for $5000?

Trust Boomers In The Kitchen?

Not this kitchen.

Or these kitchens:

Trust boomers who paid attention to hippies when they went back to the land for simplicity and a better food source than TV dinners.

From Web MD:

Call it the pursuit of hippieness. Macrobiotics, with its brown rice, beans, sea vegetables, and Asian yin-yang philosophy of finding balance in life for health and vitality, was the original counterculture diet back in the ’60s. It’s actually been around much longer than that.

From what I can make of it, I married a hippie. I know this because over the years she’s repeated the same story:

“I knew he was the right one for me when I went to his apartment the first time and he had a poster matching beans, rice, and vegetables for complete proteins.”

And just like that, we were a match, but it wasn’t a done deal until I gave her a present, a Darth Vader toothbrush. That did it for me and my Princess. She never left.

Trust boomers in the kitchen, but not kitchen design, is the mid-century message. Monied boomers followed trends that came and went.

When they moved on, the next people inherited their kitchen mistakes.

Too much maple in the cabinets. Too many pop-up fans in the kitchen island that cost plenty to replace, $1400, but still don’t pull the cooking smells like a hood.

Too many trash compactors that were once so convenient that special bags were invented to take the extra pressure. With that set up you only needed to take the trash out once a week in a heavy bag.

What happens during the week is that while compressed, the food waste still decomposed. The stink attracts rats and mice, so you’ve got that extra to work with.

Share Boomer Love

If you have questions, ask a boomer. If you need advice, find a boomer.

I took a call recently from a millennial I know and like who is not related, but we’ve known each other since he was a third grader. It started as a ‘check in’ call, but I sensed more.

So I performed my boomer-duty.

“I knew you’d find a wonderful partner, a woman that matters more to you than anyone you’ve met. She’s the one person you don’t want to disappoint, more than your mom, grandma, or sister. She’s the one who gives you license to fuck anyone up who hurts her feelings. That’s the code. You may lose friends and the affection of family members, but stand up for your girl at every turn, even if she’s wrong.

“That’s the key. If she’s wrong, still go after the other person like she’s right. Then, when you’re alone, explain what happened and why you took her side. It may matter more to you than to her, but it still matters to her. When you stick up for your woman, you let her know you’ve got her back. If she repeats the same argument and expects you to intervene, get in there, but remind her that you do it because you love her, not because she’s right.“

It was a one sided conversation and he listened politely. Maybe I sounded like an old crank? Probably, but I’m an old crank with a clean record in marriage and kids, meaning one wife with two kids and that’s it.

Pretty boring, right? It is until you see the faces of women who’ve been dealt a bad hand, married a bunch of people, combined the collected families into one group, and still been cheated on. I’ve seen a few and it’s a look my wife will never wear if I have anything to do with it. And I do.

It’s okay to be defensive about wife and kids. No one should have their well-being in mind more than you. As a husband and father, who would you expect to fly that flag. It’s all you, but call a boomer if you come upon something hard to understand.

Like this:

Dear BoomerPDX,

Should I travel over the holidays?

Signed, Feeling Fine

Dear Feeling Fine,

Haaaaaaaallllle No. Stay home, don’t touch your face, wash your hands, and wear a mask.

+++

Dear BoomerPDX,

I’m having problems deciding if life is fair. Is it?

Signed, Honest John

Dear John,

Life is as fair as you work to make it. Be honest with yourself and fair with others to start, then get back to me.

Trust boomers to respond honestly after digging deep enough for relevant experience. If they don’t do that, then what you’ve got is a retread person recycling the same bullshit you can find anywhere.

No one needs that.

Or this: