Baby Boomers

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.

When it comes to baby boomers' musical tastes, the mood of summer has always extended beyond the media's fond memories of Woodstock. Tomorrow night Barbara Huston plans to settle into an orchestra seat at the Wolf Trap performing arts center in Vienna, Va., as Tony Bennett's smooth voice washes away the frustrations of work. At 54, the Severna Park resident is among thousands of boomers expected to hear the legendary singer this summer on his national concert tour. "Tony Bennett has been singing about as long as I've been alive," Huston says.

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.

CONSIDER THE PLIGHT OF THE Empty-Nester Male: Kids out of the house, tuitions done, weekends without a list of family obligations. A man in this pitiable situation might start thinking about freedom ... about the open road ... about a new car, finally, and one that's cool. A lot of folks in the automotive industry are counting on it. At the Detroit auto show last month, Nissan introduced a concept car designed strictly for the aging baby boomer male ready to plunge deeper into his hobbies.

Marlene Freed knows what's coming. For 10 relaxing minutes, she has been lying on her back, with ice chilling the swollen tissue around a seven-inch scar on her right leg -- the spot where doctors inserted her new titanium knee. The 68-year-old Olney resident is laughing and chatting. But when physical therapist Chris Gnip climbs onto the table and starts to bend her knee, pushing it carefully but relentlessly toward her chest, Freed clams up. She closes her eyes and starts to breathe deeply.

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."

How much is a good night's sleep worth? How about $4,500? Michael Zippelli, chief executive officer of Jessup mattress maker Dormia Inc., is betting on it. He believes people would be willing to pay more for his beds, which are made from viscoelastic memory foam rather than coils or springs, if they gave them a try. "If you get a good night's sleep, you'll have a good day," he said. The Jessup manufacturer's business is growing, thanks to increasing interest in high-end bedding, whether it be traditional innerspring mattresses or "specialty bedding" made from foam or latex.

No matter how many hours you've put into elliptical training and counting carbs, no matter how well you can maneuver your body into the actual clothes you wore in the 1970s and 1980s, there's no nice way to put this: The effect just ain't the same. Allegiance to plunging necklines and '80s tapered jeans is one aspect of baby boomer fashion that Sherrie Mathieson would like to forever banish. Another is wearing a denim skirt, of any length, followed by a scary fondness for heaps of gold neck chains.

WASHINGTON -- The United States faces a "vicious cycle" of rising federal deficits and interest rates unless Congress quickly figures out how to pay for promised Social Security and Medicare benefits, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Congress yesterday. "Unfortunately, economic growth alone is unlikely to solve the nation's impending fiscal problems," Bernanke told the Senate Budget Committee in his first Capitol Hill appearance since Democrats took control of the Capitol this month.