And I don’t mean we are astonished or are surprised…you should be! Baby Boomers have come through some interesting times and we’re not done showing that we can respond with grace, dignity…and humor.

As a collective whole, we have bragging rights to surviving some pretty incredible changes in our lives. We have “gone up the hill and over the mountain” and have embraced what is on the other side. I think that makes us astonishing, wouldn’t you agree? Let me explain:

1. The Birth of Rock and Roll:

• Sometime around 1948 a combination of rhythm and blues and country began to evolve. This developed into upbeat, fun, and easy to remember lyrics and beats that wowed our Baby Boomer hearts and imaginations.
• Along with rock and roll came the means to listen to them…over and over again. How? The phonograph, the 12 inch long-playing phonograph to be exact. Artists could record more than one song and Boomers could be enraptured for a full 30 minutes or more with their favorite soloist or band.
• Well that’s great, we have rock and roll and a way to record the music, but how could we hear it? On the radio! Around this time the transistor radio also came into existence, meaning that the radio stations could play our favorite music and we could listen to it at home and shortly after in our cars. Music “on the go” was born!

2. With Rock and Roll playing loudly in our ears, we moved into the 60’s and the birth of the “hippie”. Words like “cool”, peace, and “man” actually belong to us…we were the originators. But we’re OK if they’re still used today (remember, we’re astonishing).

The 60’s were a time of “counter-culture” and “social revolution”. We performed peace walks, sit-ins…and anything else we could think of to get our message across to big government that we were in charge, not them. We drove our “peace vans”, wore our tie-dye t-shirts, and, unfortunately I think, were instrumental in escalating the use of illegal drugs. That’s not really astonishing but is something that the 60’s are known for.

3. And then we watched in awe as man landed on the moon and those famous words were said, “That’s one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind”. We were there when someone left our planet and ventured into outer space. What a day that was…and we were glued to our black and white TV sets…oh yeah, we were around for the birth of television and moving picture shows as well.

Are you not astonished…that we are still sane? And guess what? We are not afraid of the internet either! We are mastering that as well and writing our stories, this story, on the World Wide Web.

If ever you doubted us astonishing Baby Boomers, I dare you to use your favorite search engine and look us up. There we are, either being written about or doing the writing ourselves. And to make it even more interesting, we’re retiring…meaning we have more time to extol our virtues and rest on our laurels. We find ourselves pretty astonishing.