Baby Boomers

After a New York Times article last month suggested we might be saving too much for retirement, it wasn't long before Bethesda financial planner Mary Malgoire started hearing from clients that "The New York Times says I don't have to save." Malgoire, solidly in the prevailing camp that says Americans aren't preparing enough for retirement, wasn't happy. "It made me angry," she says of the article. "Americans generally are not saving enough. Baby boomers are overspending hand over fist."

When Eva Polydoris looks back on the four decades before she retired, she recalls everything that stood in the way of amassing a comfortable level of retirement savings: At first, it was the usual struggles of life, including raising three children and putting them through college. Then came financial setbacks, such as her husband's early death, substantial medical expenses that drained savings, caring for an ill mother, Kmart stock that went bad when the company went into bankruptcy, losing a job at age 66 and not being able to find another one that paid adequately.

This Memorial Day, Jodi and Mark Davis are celebrating the launch of the RV season hunkered down with three trailer-loads of relatives in a leafy campground near Hershey, Pa. The Bel Air couple have picked a site with plenty to do: A weekend of canoeing, mountain biking, swimming, mini-golfing, fishing and Pennsylvania Dutch attractions should easily create another chapter in the long family history of RVing. Like many inhabitants of the recreational vehicle universe, the Davises are baby boomers who like nothing better than shedding their corporate duds on a Friday afternoon to head for the hills -- or at least the nearest KOA campground.

THE RECENT funeral of a friend stirred up nostalgic feelings for many of us baby boomers in attendance because the setting was the old Harlem theater, now the Harlem Park Community Baptist Church on North Gilmor Street in West Baltimore.My friends and I grew up in a Baltimore with neighborhoods rigidly defined by race, class and movie theaters. Yes, the cultural significance of those now-vanished showplaces may be overlooked by the general public, but their names still resonate with those old enough to remember the Bridge, the Lafayette, the Biddle, the Regent, the Met, the Roosevelt, the Carey, the New Albert, the Capitol and many others.

Baby boomers between the ages of 43 and 53 list price and affordability as their No. 1 concern as they prepare to become the next wave of homebuyers, according to a national survey by Professional Builder magazine.As for features in the home, baby boomers listed energy efficiency as most important, with fireplaces, home offices and home entertainment centers also making the most-wanted list.However, the survey, which interviewed 752 people, found that other preferences differ by regions in the country.

A new future for elderly motorists across the nation -- including millions who might otherwise have to give up driving -- could take shape over the next two years because of a Maryland project that is the most comprehensive study ever of older drivers.The study, which is being watched nationally, has two objectives: to develop sophisticated driving tests that can spot people at risk for accidents early on and to identify ways to help seniors remain safely behind the wheel as long as possible.

MOST BABY boomers, no matter what their politics, once identified strongly with John F. Kennedy's dictate to "ask not what your country can do for you."Now that they have come into full power in the labor force, business, Congress and the presidency, it is ironic that their legacy could well be a federal government almost solely devoted to meeting their retirement needs, at the expense of other national priorities.This legacy is as firmly rooted in the Republican Congress' budget proposals as it is in the president's or current law.Under all, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid expenditures would rise from about 40 percent of federal revenues today to almost 80 percent in 50 years.

SO NOW we know the House Republicans' idea of a diversified leadership. Last month they elected ultra-conservative, middle-aged white Christian males -- three Protestants and a Catholic (who used to be an Episcopalian) from adjoining oil patch states of Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma as speaker, majority leader, majority whip and conference chairman.Now, I know some of you are thinking I must be blind -- J. C. Watts Jr., the conference chairman, is an African American. Yes, know, but to paraphrase the poet William Blake, "his skin is black, but Oh!

The rain is coming down in sheets and the sky over Glen Burnie is the color of boiled cabbage, but you don't care.A hundred yards up Ritchie Highway, a late-model Honda Civic has hydroplaned into a Ford Taurus and the Taurus looks like it might be in the body shop until the Al Gore presidency, but you don't care about that, either. In fact, you don't care much about anything right now, because you're inside the vast, quiet, cocoon-like elegance of the La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery, your body melted into a recliner so comfortable it may take a cattle prod to get you out of this baby.

Home remodeling expenditures are shooting through the roof, according to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau.The annual rate of spending for remodeling hit $121.1 billion for the first quarter of 1998, marking the second highest on record. The latest figures rose 6 percent from the previous quarter and 9 percent when compared to the same period last year.However, it was less than the record $125.7 billion spent during 1997's third quarter.Nonetheless, the consistently high numbers are demonstrating an increasingly stronger market, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Watch out, baby boomers. The Millennials are coming for your jobs. This generational warfare is the story developing in the media, and as with most trend stories, it does have a kernel of truth. The baby boomer generation - born between 1946 and 1964 - has had a stranglehold on nearly every arena in American life, including politics, economics and the culture wars, since I was born. Even President Barack Obama, who campaigned on a promise to leave behind the boomers' old campus feuds, is, technically, one of them.

From what I can tell, in just the few minutes I've spent watching her at work, the physical therapist is everything you'd want in one - patient and positive, even cheerful, experienced at working with the old and infirm, empathetic but not a push-over. The PT wants something out of her patient today, and she's determined to get at least some of it. "Come on now, Louie," she tells the old man, as he lay on his bed on Saturday morning. "Let's do leg lifts, and let's bend those knees." The old man has been through hell recently, a streak of health problems that have taken their toll in energy and attitude.

Baby boomers have lived through the assassinations of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Martin Luther King Jr., the race to the moon and the Communist threat, Watergate and a few wars. Along the way, most became comfortable using computers and the Internet. Now, as they ease into their golden years, they'll be part of another change: They'll be the first generation who can apply for their Social Security benefits completely online. Yesterday, the Social Security Administration announced that people who reach retirement age, as early as 62, can go to the federal agency's Web site and fill out a benefits application.

Clutching a freshly purchased Pilates video, Liz Overstreet, who's 56, pauses for a second to think about what she, a vibrant working woman with toned arms and thick hair, is doing at, of all places, an AARP convention. "I'm not old," Overstreet, who is from Lanham, almost scoffs. "If you're 50 or 55 or 60, you're not old. This show is about - what are they calling it? - 'life after 50.' "We're all here looking for stuff to do, places to go, things to buy and information. Our parents were old people.

It seemed like a good idea. Baby boomers who never got around to saving as much as they hoped promised to keep working past retirement age. The joke in the generation has been: "I'll just work forever." And the intent has shown up repeatedly in research. But now along comes an economic downturn, and people are losing jobs. It looks as though Plan B, a lifetime of working, might not be an option to rescue undersavers after all. "It's a perfect storm," said Jack VanDerhei, a Temple University professor and fellow at the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

The gathering after the funeral took place in a catering hall instead of a relative's home - because there was no longer a relative's home nearby - so, when the two hours were up and all the food had been served, three waitresses started quickly clearing tables and moving chairs. That was a signal for the rest of us to head for the doors and get on with our lives. There were quick farewells and hugs and kisses, then into the parking lot and into cars, and back to the errands and chores of a busy Saturday.

Baby boomers are receiving a lot of attention from financial services firms looking to help them manage retirement, but it may be the next generation that needs the most help. Nearly half of people age 35 to 42 are at risk of not having enough money in retirement, according to research published this month by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Increasing longevity, a higher retirement age for collecting Social Security benefits and fewer traditional pensions all put this group - which it defines as Generation X - at risk, said one of the study's authors, Alicia H. Munnell.

It's no secret that Americans are in denial when it comes to aging. Sales of Botox are booming, tummy tucks and eyelid lifts are common, and anti-aging creams and gels are multibillion-dollar businesses. So it should come as no surprise that Americans find it difficult to grasp that our population as a whole is maturing, that the median age is slowly climbing upward. This has serious consequences for our economy and our culture, and it also bears on the immigration issue now being debated.

When Eva Polydoris looks back on the four decades before she retired, she recalls everything that stood in the way of amassing a comfortable level of retirement savings: At first, it was the usual struggles of life, including raising three children and putting them through college. Then came financial setbacks, such as her husband's early death, substantial medical expenses that drained savings, caring for an ill mother, Kmart stock that went bad when the company went into bankruptcy, losing a job at age 66 and not being able to find another one that paid adequately.

This Memorial Day, Jodi and Mark Davis are celebrating the launch of the RV season hunkered down with three trailer-loads of relatives in a leafy campground near Hershey, Pa. The Bel Air couple have picked a site with plenty to do: A weekend of canoeing, mountain biking, swimming, mini-golfing, fishing and Pennsylvania Dutch attractions should easily create another chapter in the long family history of RVing. Like many inhabitants of the recreational vehicle universe, the Davises are baby boomers who like nothing better than shedding their corporate duds on a Friday afternoon to head for the hills -- or at least the nearest KOA campground.