BOOMER TIME, FEED YOUR MIND, MAKE A RHYME

Boomer time is the right time, and it’s now.

If Baby Boomers live up to the current predictions, one in eight will get Alzheimer’s.

No cure, bad ending.

Is it caused from eating too many modern aluminum foiled TV dinners in childhood?

Modern food production and delivery promised unheard of labor savings.

The Hungry Man sized dinner is big enough for the biggest appetite.

Does it deliver more than promised?

If Alzheimer’s and heavy metals are linked, we’re all in for a big eraser job.

Like the joke about memory foam mattresses, maybe some things are best forgotten.

Funny or not, no one wants that; no one wants a blank slate late in life.

And I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s later than you think.

Boomers, especially the first wave of post WWII kids born from 1946 – 1964, grew up and felt the country shift under their feet.

They saw National Guardsmen in a high school in 1957.

National Guardsmen hit campus in 1970 locked and loaded.

Some grew their freak flag. They haired out.

They saw their friends turn into National Guardsmen, or Marines, or soldiers, or sailors.

The 1969 numbers for military in Vietnam and music fans at Woodstock were both around half million, rounded off.

That’s a million people on the road at the same time. What the heck was going on?

Just the peak of Boomer Time?

Not all the half million attending Woodstock were stoned-out, acid-eyed, trippers; not all the other half million attended the My Lai Massacre.

It just seemed that way.

Take those thirteen years between 1957 and 1970 and try to make sense of them.

Think of the Kennedys, MLK, the Moon. You’re getting dizzy. It’s an acid flashback, but remember, you never ate the brown acid.

It’s not Alzheimer’s.

Instead, it’s a time-warp sensation where you realize how much changed in such a short time.

A Beatles song hums in your head, something from Rubber Soul.

It’s Nowhere Man.

You feel numb when you read today’s paper or turn on the news and it seems like nothing has changed

If there’s any change it’s only for the worse.

War, assassinations, Middle East conflict. One mess after another with even more on the back burner heating up.

It’s a brain strain day after day.

A commercial promotes an anti-depressant for people not pregnant or nursing, who don’t plan to be pregnant or nursing, and not for anyone with suicidal thoughts.

And you remember your childhood friend’s mom saying, “If you kids don’t mind, I’ll kill myself.”

It was only expression”

The next ad pushes pills for ED, which once stood for education and now means wood.

Which way are we supposed to turn?

Then Nowhere Man cues up.  You’ve never known the lyrics, but now you do? Now they make sense?

The timing is right, boomer time.

It sounds like an Alzheimer’s anthem today.

He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Doesn’t have a point of view
knows not where he’s going to
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere man please listen
You don’t know what you’re missing
Nowhere man, The world is at your command

He’s as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man, can you see me at all

Nowhere man don’t worry
Take your time, don’t hurry
Leave it all till somebody else
Lends you a hand

Doesn’t have a point of view
knows not where he’s going to
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere man please listen
You don’t know what you’re missing
Nowhere man, The world is at your command

He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Who’s ready for a remake titled “Somewhere Man?” Tap your toe to Boomer Time.

Are you there yet?