Tag: boomers

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Coquina and Misinformation

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

I was watching No Reservations recently and noticed that Anthony was eating some kind of mollusk in a long straight shell. He described it as a razor clam. This is an unremarkable observation in and of itself.

However, the shell was very familiar to me, and I eventually pieced together why.

I was in an especially anti-Boomer mood for some reason (easy to do when the internal monologue digs up resentment towards American economics, and Anthony Bourdain was doing one of his self-gratification episodes). And so my thoughts had turned towards my wife’s aunt, who is in many ways the personification of Boomerism. While quite kind in her own way, she has a predilection for Boomer opinion stereotypes, such as taking hearsay at face value, and maintaining a preference for mediocre chain restaurants that serve needlessly large portions.

I’ll chalk that last one up to simple generational preferences, and the fact that she doesn’t enjoy cooking. You can’t really blame someone who doesn’t like to cook for their pre-prepared food preferences. But it’s that first observation that’s the theme of this post.

The other reason she came to mind was that she is a resident of St. Augustine, FL – and the place where I first saw these clam shells. She also told me that it was illegal to pick up rocks off the beach and take them home when we last visited. I refer specifically to coquina – those cool rocks of compressed shells that the Spanish used to build forts out of.

But back to the clam. The shells of these creatures were all over the Atlantic Florida beaches. Not knowing them for what they were, I was informed by said aunt that they were the hardened outer skins of mangroves. I did not question this, probably because I was on vacation and intentionally trying to avoid thinking too much.

A brief internet search revealed that the Atlantic Jackknife Clam (a type of razor clam, which I already linked to above), is indeed a very common shell to find on the Atlantic beaches, and there were no apparent references to petrified mangroves.

I then attempted to determine definitively if picking up coquina from the beaches of St. Augustine was in fact illegal. I found two references to the topic that said yes it is: 1) A personal blog by a resident, and 2) A private local newspaper that didn’t cite any legal statutes. The examples given in both were extreme, claiming that tourists go out to the beaches and chip lots of coquina away from major outcroppings. A somewhat different situation than some guy who picked up a rock sitting on the sand.

I also found out that commercial licenses are issued for the wholesale harvesting of coquina for the purpose of selling it to tourists. This leads me to believe that there are no environmental or archaeological concerns involved, and that it’s simply control of local economics. So locals don’t like tourists, but have no problem with taking their money. I’d hazard to say that this is common sentiment amongst small communities in desirable locations.

She had tricked me into not keeping a cool clam shell I found because I falsely believed that it was an unremarkable sliver of wood that would just dry out and rot away. But I didn’t believe taking a rock was illegal, so when she wasn’t looking I pilfered a sizeable chunk.

Contraband!?

And here it sits on my deck now.

I’m still not convinced that taking it was illegal, both because of the misinformation I already received and that the only internet references I can find to this mysterious rule exist on non-credible websites. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was just messing with me, but I’d equally believe she took these fallacies herself to be truth.

Boomers, right?

–Simon

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Age and Economics

385 words, 2 minutes read time.

Now that I’m 40, I’ve done some reflecting. In all, I don’t have too many complaints when I really think about it. I mean, America’s golden age – at least in recent history and the era we still seem to consider the gold standard (hehe) – was the 1950s and 60s, and a time in which the war and postwar generations saw large economic growth.

Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/economic-growth-rate

Just look at those GDP spikes, compared to 2007, when I entered the workforce full time! Sure there were some recessions, and the Boomers still whine about how bad interest rates were in 1980 (and how so many of them were almost drafted for The Vietnam War), but look at the growth recovery following each of those events, compared to the 2008 Great Recession.

Recession of 1953

Inflation and rising interest rates:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1953

Recession of 1958

Sinking car and house purchases:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1958

Early 1980s recession in the United States

Inflation and oil energy dependency:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession_in_the_United_States

2007–2008 financial crisis

Unsustainable and predatory financial lending practices:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_financial_crisis

And studies which I won’t bother to cite because you have a search engine too have long mockingly laughed at my generation’s plight, as those who enter the workforce in a recession are doomed to never make much money. And yet, here Liz and I sit, apparently as 12%-ers. And also apparently I’ll be a multi-millionaire at retirement according to projections. And like most of my generation, I normally don’t discuss my financial situation, because we just don’t want to get into it with a boomer. But sometimes I think it’s healthy to brag about one’s accomplishments and this one in particular is contrary to everything I was told was going to happen, thanks to boomer generational masturbatory article headlines (“Your kids are lazy and won’t get a job and they’re moving back home to take your money”).

But I started off on a tangent. I meant to post some cheap laughs at becoming older, but I’m apparently so adversarialy positive about my situation that I got distracted with everything good that’s happened on my journey to becoming middle-aged.

Oh well. Fodder for my next post I suppose, since I’m almost hitting 400 words here! Next time – how long it takes to grow out a damaged fingernail! Woo!

–Simon

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Zone Rouge Hazards

Following the First World War, sections of the former No Man’s Land in France and Belgium were deemed uninhabitable for the foreseeable future, due to their lingering high levels of soil contamination of lead and various chemical weapons. These areas, assigned the moniker “Zone Rouge”, were quarantined and allowed to return to nature.

Following the Great BP Easement Purge of 2017 in Centerville, OH, lands that were formerly allowed to return to nature and then cleared, were in part allowed to return to nature again after some neighborhood hostilities. Their efforts to block us from view involved the planting of many conifers, which have gradually expanded to almost accomplish such a task. The Landscaper, who no doubt planted them at the behest of his screaming harpy, was considerate enough to do so in a manner that considered a property line buffer. It was a perfectly acceptable way to approach not wanting to see us.

The impetus to do so was upon the completion of the the BP Purge, followed by us deciding to get a professional survey of our property line, which revealed the former green belt to be primarily ours – a revelation that upset more than one neighbor, for now they were forced to utilize their own land to plant new screening, effectively reducing the perceived size of their own property. I mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again here: Surveying your property line might not make you any enemies, but it will definitely not make you any friends.

But moving along, as these conifers grew, the buffer shrank. Because trees grow. And while they had previously mowed this buffer, it shrank to the point that they couldn’t get their wide-track mower into it, because that would have involved mowing onto our side and we had since installed shrubs and gardens – with stakes to prevent any “accidental” landscaping incidents. A normal response would have been to tackle the buffer with a smaller push mower or a weedwhacker, but as The Landscaper had since been kicked out and the chore now the responsibility of their indifferent son, they instead decided to just ignore the buffer.

Which is why I call it the Zone Rouge. It’s a post-conflict abandoned strip of land. And occasionally and irregularly poisoned with isopropylamine salt of glyphosate, courtesy of the The Landscaper’s replacement (the new guy the Harpy’s fucking).

I, however, refuse to allow my property to return to the “communal” green belt. This makes my own landscaping somewhat more difficult, and hedge trimmers are now required to maintain the delineation. But there’s a greater problem at large: wildlife. Specifically, the insect variety. The blood-consuming variety. And they like overgrown flora to hide in.

To exacerbate the issue, the corner of the neighbor lot floods regularly. A french drain or perhaps a berm might reduce that problem, but as I have so subtly suggested previously, these aren’t exactly people who do anything to contribute to the community at large. Nor are they outdoorsy. So to them, “doesn’t impact me” = “I’m not going to do anything about it even though it might impact others”. Which is also why they haven’t put up any sort of containment system for their dog which constantly shits in everyone else’s yard. They’re a little young to be boomers, but they sure have the mentality.

Anyway, so following this long-winded complaining intro about bad neighbors – we have a mosquito problem. Which I have taken some steps to mitigate!

But I’ve recently received feedback that my shorter posts are more entertaining, so I’ll make this a two-part post! Haha! Teaser. You’ll have to wait to read about mosquito eradication techniques.

And now, a word from our sponsors…

–Simon

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Solitude (or, Leave Me Alone!)

I’ve always possessed a rather high tolerance for solitude. And often, I’ve been mislabeled as “antisocial” as a result. But time gives one opportunity to self-reflect, and I have since concluded that this accusation is unfair. I’m not antisocial. Rather, I possess a lack of tolerance to associate with people who don’t contribute to my happiness, well-being, or personal/professional goals. It’s not being self-centered, it’s being pragmatic; and it’s a natural progression into the latter stages of life (I’m middle-aged now I hear!)

It’s probably a very late realization, for I was raised to be the people-pleaser. Parental upbringing, an oppressive educational system, a social system that rewarded agreeableness, and the supremely draconian punishments for upsetting customers in service jobs (the only jobs available to a 16-30 year old) – all contributed to the “be nice and indulge everyone” philosophy that dictated my social interactions throughout my formative years. As a result, this “antisocialness” was instead a tendency to avoid all people, because I was conditioned to have to like all people, and lacked the backbone to be more selective.

Now I’ve realized that I don’t have to do that. And it started with this:

If people obey the fuzzy ropes at public venues, then a chain should accomplish the same. My apologies to USPS and any package couriers. I try to remember to take this down if one of you is coming that day.

Granted solicitors are the most aggravating of the lot. When I checked back on surveillance footage and saw the same guy from 2018 who comes back every year to try to sell me a bug-spraying service, my patience hit an end.

Salesmanship
More Solicitors

Add to that a stereotype Republican boomer neighbor with a litany of conspiracy theories (government is spraying the atmosphere with COVID vaccines, Michelle Obama has a penis…you get the idea), street missionaries trying to get me to join their church, and political activists asking how I plan to vote; and while not true “solicitors”, I’m hoping the chain will send a message.

So far so good, though I haven’t captured anyone on camera yet to draw a correlation.

More importantly, the symbolic gesture has finally emboldened me to become more self-serving! I view this as a good thing. Being a doormat only leads to a life of quiet desperation. That was the lesson that George Bailey should have learned.

Here’s some examples:

  • I hung up on someone! I had to disable blocking unknown callers for a time during that HVAC adventure, and I got another call asking for Dustin Werner. When I said they had the wrong number they proceeded to ask if I knew him, and I just hung up and blocked the number instead. Damn was that liberating!
  • I send my new doctor a letter outlining his incompetent staff (4 weeks and I still don’t have my medical records available). I never “broke up” with a physician before.
  • I stopped engaging with my sister over pointless and hostile “discussions”. Actually, I do feel a little bad about this one, but it’s the similarly politically-charged points as the aforementioned neighbor, albeit not totally unhinged and far left instead of right and dripping with pseudo-intellectualism (the world’s entering environmental collapse, you planted the wrong tree, you interpreted that book/movie wrong, The Patriarchy and men are all overly-confident know-it-alls (why would you even have this as a conversational point when calling your own brother?) I still talk to her in chats though.

This almost sounds like a bad motivational speech, but if you don’t add any value to my life then I’m not going to talk to you!

I mean, within reason of course. I’m not a psychopath. I’ll still help people and do nice things for family, but I won’t tolerate them thinking I owe them my time.

–Simon

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Pander to Me

While I consider myself to be inter-generational, my year of birth does place me into the Millennial bracket, technically. Consequently, I’m no stranger to the accusations of snowflake-dom by the older crowd. It gets a little irksome, considering the now well-studied economic disparity between the age ranges. To be labeled as sensitive and possessing an intangible need to be acknowledged for my individuality as compensation for a presumed overly-comfortable upbringing and fragile ego shows a very limited viewpoint. Also perpetuated is the false notion that Millennials are poor because we lack motivation, which is of course the result of these stereotypes. If I worked harder and didn’t whine so much then I would have money I guess.

And yet – call a Boomer out on any argumentative fallacies and all too often the backlash is exactly what would be expected of one with such a fragile ego themselves. Even my father, who’s in comparison not overly Boomer-y and seemingly rather self-reflective, throws down awfully quick if poked too hard in generational jesting. As a whole, they do love to cast the gauntlet, but respond in outrage if someone picks it up, as if they never expected anyone younger to defend their own honor. I would hazard to guess this is because they’re used to being customers to a Millennial-staffed service world who weren’t allowed to defend themselves on threat of losing their already meager financial situation.

But just as Boomers couldn’t fathom a world in which Millennials could stand up for themselves, I, who for his adult lifetime has been part of this marginalized age-based demographic, couldn’t fathom what the counterattack represented: the power dynamic had shifted – where significant financial assets were now in the possession of a younger generation – a world that began to pander to me. When did that happen?

I think it began a long time ago, but with subtle change: with Apple’s iTunes store and Netflix’s video streaming service. With music albums and bundled cable packages being cost-prohibitive to the financially disadvantaged, Apple saw an opportunity for an a la carte option, and Netflix for what was essentially an on-demand bulk movie rental service. There was a market opening for cheaper ad-free curated media devoid of time slots, built for a customer base that couldn’t commit to penalty-laden contracts, daily prime time TV-watching availability, and with an unwillingness to buy more than what was wanted. The industry in its raw Capitalism indirectly gave power to those it sought to exploit – by giving them what they wanted. Intentional or not, they acknowledged Millennials.

And then things got even better once Millennials acquired money and property – another change that Boomers couldn’t mentally digest. I’ve noticed a trending alignment between what I want and what the world around me wants, and I can only assume that this means that the people in control have an increasing motivation to give me and my generation what we want (again, because we have money now). Some things are more observational than measurable, so this is far from scientific. But the general feeling is there. Here’s some recent local developments:

  • Increasing closure rate of local big box chain stores.
  • Increased pressure to improve city aesthetics.
  • Influx of independent restaurants and bars.
  • City veto to approve a new gas station builds.
  • Failed passing of state amendment increasing majority vote to 60%.
  • Successful passing of state amendment protecting right to abortion.
  • Passing of municipal park levy.
  • Marijuana regulation and decriminalization.
  • …And a sidewalk was installed in my neighborhood.

These items correspond exactly to my last cast ballot, but they also demonstrate a significant shift away from the world I knew just 20 years ago. Back then, the ethos was more big business, more cars, bigger roads, and being tough on crime. Not to mention the constant excuses to budget cut anything in the public sector. Boomers love budget cuts.

Now it would appear that we’re moving away from a philosophy of authoritarianism, uncontrolled growth, and monetary pursuit; and into a world that’s more aligned with improving the general quality of life for everyone, rather than fetishizing Reagan-ism and Gekko-ism.

The shift itself has increased Boomer hostility, and it’s not that younger generations are being sensitive. It represents what they can’t accept – impending Boomer obsolescence, and Millennials finally getting a say in shaping the future. It’s a power dynamic that Boomers are losing, and few have ever been eager to relinquish that power willingly, least of all the Boomers.

But at long last, I can sit silently and smugly watch the inevitable.

“You can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”

–Simon