Boomers

As soft as a rose petal, the sheet practically floats on your hand. Its damask rose pattern is as intricate as a tapestry. And if you had a magnifying glass and the patience, you could count 310 tiny cotton threads in every square inch of cloth. It seems like a fabric from out of this world.The sheet's price is certainly stratospheric. At $190 for a twin flat sheet, this isn't the kind of bedding you send the kids off to camp with. But the "Tea Rose" sheet, woven in Italy for the William Sonoma-owned Chambers catalog, represents the natural culmination of the return of cotton to the American bed. These days, cotton is king-, queen- and twin-size.

Just when you thought you couldn't possibly hate CBS Sports' coverage of the Baltimore Ravens more, along come Dan Marino and Boomer Esiason with their ignorant pre-game predictions Sunday. “I love the Bengals to come of age today,” Esiason said. “I think Baltimore's going to be the fifth seed,” Marino added. “Baltimore has not been a good road team all year.  And A.J. Green is coming back for Cincinnati. That means Pittsburgh's got to beat Cleveland, which I think will happen.  They will be the No. 2 seed, and Cincinnati gets in the playoffs today.”  Right, guys.

Driving home the other day, listening to the radio I heard a reference to the "key demographic marketing group, the 25 through 52s."Hmm, I thought, not bad.Ten minutes later I heard reference to the same group, only now it was "the 25 through 54s."Even better: The "key group" had matured two more years in 600 seconds. The baby boom -- epicenter of popular culture all these years -- is aging fast.We see that phenomenon reflected in coming movies, which tend to stress family values, togetherness, less risque (and risky)

NAMES: Boomer and Riley OWNER: MC Schneider HOW THEY MET: Boomer came from a breeder in Westminster and Riley from a breeder in Mt. Airy AGE: Boomer is almost 8 and Riley is 2 HOME: Hampstead BREED: Boomer is a Black American Field Lab and Riley is a Yellow English Lab BEST TRICK: Boomer likes to sit on the sofa - literally. His butt is on the cushions and his front paws are on the floor. Both dogs know to bark at my neighbor's deck until she comes out and throws ice cubes to them.

The people who run senior centers are finding that the baby boomers who are beginning to populate them don't want bingo, they want belly dancing (see our Page 1 story). These aging boomers are less inclined than their parents were to pull up stakes and move to Florida, or even into nearby retirement housing. They want to stay right where they are, in the homes they know, and local officials have sharpened their focus on ways to help them achieve that goal. Observing the determination of this new segment of the senior population to stay put and to keep doing physical things instead of shuffling off to some warm corner to await the inevitable quietly, the cynic might say it's a result of denial: The people who came of age in the don't-trust-anyone-over-30 culture of the 1960s are vainly clinging to their youth.

The nation's original baby boomer turned 65 on New Year's Day, representing another milestone for a generation. Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, who celebrated her birthday with family at her second home on Maryland's Eastern Shore, is the very first of more than 78 million baby boomers who will turn grayer during the next two decades. That means they can collect Social Security — and now Medicare benefits. According to the Pew Research Center, about 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65 every day. All baby boomers, those who were born between 1946 and 1965, will reach that threshold by 2030.

The Wall Street Journal reports that baby boomers have not emerged from the fetal position they assumed in 2008, when they found their homes and their retirement funds suddenly to be worth half as much. We boomers stopped spending — we haven't opened our wallets since — and because boomers represent such a huge chunk of the American population, that's bad news for an economy powered by consumer spending. Our plans for retirement were already in trouble because we hadn't saved enough during our working lives, and the stock market collapse made the future that much more troubling.

As older baby boomers near or enter retirement, many are so paralyzed by fears of poverty and distrust of financial advisers that they can't take the steps needed to secure their future, according to a report released Monday by a California investment adviser. Instead, they often rely on "magical thinking," where they hope that it will somehow all work out in the end, says Financial Engines, which interviewed more than 300 older boomers during the past three years. It's understandable that early boomers, the oldest of whom turn 65 this year, are worried.

There is a boom in baby boomer joblessness. It has more than doubled, from 3.2 percent to 6.8 percent, since the recession began. Earlier this week, a CBS Evening News report focused on the plight of unemployed professionals ages 55 and older in the Charlotte, N.C. area. Even the most organized among them - like those who make looking for a job a full-time job - can't find work. One of the people interviewed has a Harvard MBA but no job. Another, a 56-year-old financial professional, works long days trying to place himself in a new job, with no luck so far. He told reporter Byron Pitts that he has resigned himself to working into his 70s. We hear this all the time, don't we?

NEW YORK -- Economists like to emphasize the importance of economic policy. They are quick to give credit to sound policies in periods of prosperity and look for policy mistakes whenever things go wrong.But they tend to disregard the enormous role played by demographics. There is, for example, a heated debate in this country over which policies created the current economic boom.Yet, with all due respect for various economic ideologies, it could merely be that the baby boom generation is responsible.

In my family it is known as "The Jongebloed Hip," which - amazingly - is even less glamorous than its title. It is the genetic misstep that caused my grandfather and his twin brother to spend their last 30 years veering slightly left of center and wincing on their way up from or down to any chair in a room. When my mother could no longer deny that she was in grave pain with every step, her doctor gasped at her X-rays and sent her posthaste for a replacement. "Don't worry," my mother always told me. "You have Dad's genes, and his hip is fine.

"Near-retirees," as those of us of a certain age are often called, are getting a lot of mixed messages. Fortune magazine reports that companies are hanging onto their baby boomers because they fear a brain drain - a loss of skills and institutional knowledge. In 1985, the magazine says, about 11 percent of people over 65 worked full- or part-time. This year, the figure is more than 18 percent. However, while unemployment among older workers is 6.2 percent, significantly below the national rate of 9.1 percent, it is double what it was three years ago. And the U.S. Government Accountability Office says that those 55 and older who lose their jobs wait an average of three times longer than they did in 2007 - from 11 to 31 weeks - before they find work.

My husband and I have been stashing money in our 401(k)s since they were introduced in the 1980s, but, despite the miracle of compounding interest, he is still convinced we will be working at McDonald's - and eating our only meal of the day off of the steam table there - when we retire. Like most "pre-retirees," we have been paying more attention to our health (weight, diet and exercise), but my husband is still planning to go swimming in shark-infested waters wearing a steak around his neck as soon as he begins to feel knee or hip pain, because there is nothing he dreads more than a long, slow slide into decrepitude.

For some time, I have been reading about the problems created by the vast number of baby boomers reaching retirement age. This week, I became part of the problem. After almost 34 years writing for The Baltimore Sun, I am saying so long. I applied for a buyout - or voluntary separation plan - that the newspaper offered, and since acceptance was based on seniority and I have been around longer than the presses that print the paper, I was a shoo-in. As my last day approached, I prepared to leave the labor force by doing some research about the group I am joining: the retired.

The people who run senior centers are finding that the baby boomers who are beginning to populate them don't want bingo, they want belly dancing (see our Page 1 story). These aging boomers are less inclined than their parents were to pull up stakes and move to Florida, or even into nearby retirement housing. They want to stay right where they are, in the homes they know, and local officials have sharpened their focus on ways to help them achieve that goal. Observing the determination of this new segment of the senior population to stay put and to keep doing physical things instead of shuffling off to some warm corner to await the inevitable quietly, the cynic might say it's a result of denial: The people who came of age in the don't-trust-anyone-over-30 culture of the 1960s are vainly clinging to their youth.

Baltimore County's police chief is investigating whether he can use a local padlock law to shut down a Middle River bar after a man and a woman were stabbed there in separate incidents this month, according to a department spokeswoman. In addition, police are working with the head of the county liquor board to address concerns at the bar, located in the 100 block of Earls Road. A hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 22. The latest stabbing at Boomer's Bar & Smokehouse occurred about 12:45 a.m. Friday.

BOSTON -- In retrospect, it was the perfect way to begin the Year the Baby Boomers Turned 60. After all, the audience for the Rolling Stones concert was divided roughly into two demographics: One generation (mine) was awe-struck that anyone our age could rock and roll for two straight hours without Advil or a stretcher. The younger generation couldn't believe they were even at a rock concert by a 62-year-old. We are less than two months into the era of aging baby boomers, an oxymoron if there ever was one. About 7,918 people turn 60 every day. This is a generation that spawned an industry of trend watchers and boomerologists.

It's a bummer, man. Millions of baby boomers, raised on rock 'n' roll and once the drivers of America's youth culture, have finally been tossed in with their aged parents. They're now part of the U.S. Census Bureau's "older population," meaning everyone age 55 and up. The post-World War II baby boom arrived between 1946 and 1964, and the oldest of them are turning 57 this year. That puts many of them squarely in the bureau's first category of elders, between ages 55 and 64 -- the "near old."

There is a boom in baby boomer joblessness. It has more than doubled, from 3.2 percent to 6.8 percent, since the recession began. Earlier this week, a CBS Evening News report focused on the plight of unemployed professionals ages 55 and older in the Charlotte, N.C. area. Even the most organized among them - like those who make looking for a job a full-time job - can't find work. One of the people interviewed has a Harvard MBA but no job. Another, a 56-year-old financial professional, works long days trying to place himself in a new job, with no luck so far. He told reporter Byron Pitts that he has resigned himself to working into his 70s. We hear this all the time, don't we?