About the Boomers

We have a problem …perhaps the most serious problem confronting our society today! Between 1946 and 1964, America’s population experienced a sudden surge. During this period 76 million little Americans were born -- more births than at any equivalent time in our history.

The Americans born during this period constitute almost 40% of our voting-age population. Most of the critical problems that beset by our society are a direct result of this bulge in America’s population known as “the Baby Boom”.

What should we do about this burgeoning generation that distorts our society...eats our fast food, clogs our highways, burns our gas, and overloads our recreation sites? Keep in mind that most of the Boomers are not yet retired! What’s life going to be like when they reach full maturity and hit the roads and casinos full time?

The Baby Boomers are now destroying what little remains of our youth-oriented culture. Once we were the land of the young and free and reckless – pioneers ready to explore new frontiers and cheerfully fight enemies, real and imagined. Now we’re afraid to soap windows on Halloween, blow-up mailboxes on the 4^th of July, or just shoot the crap out of stop signs after hunting season.

What we have today is a timid, flabby, aging, self-gratifying, bulge in our collective civic body -- gobbling up our country’s material wealth and then refusing to pass it on to younger generations. Previous Americans lived and gracefully died at ages where their children could live to enjoy their inheritances. Today’s Baby Boomers are refusing to die at an alarming rate! When the last Baby Boomer reaches 65 in 2030, she will ravenously consume stuff for another 22 years. Can we afford such nonsense?

Of course, it’s the young people who bear the brunt of their parents and grandparents grab for all the good stuff-- occupying the best places, bankrupting Medicare, marginalizing Social Security, and generally turn our country into an old people’s home. When I was born, the number of workers for each retired person was ten. Today it’s three. Soon, only two people will be supporting every retiree in lifestyles that include vacations in the Bahamas, shopping trips to Paris and Tijuana, ocean cruises, fine beer, bottled water, and sushi. And then, when they finally get ready to die, they’ll blow the rest on luxury nursing homes and on cryogenically freezing their heads.

Friends, we must act now. We must encourage our Baby Boomers to cheerfully self-destruct.

Here’s my 5 point plan:

#1: A recent study reports that the number of motorcyclists 45 years old and older killed in crashes nearly quadrupled over the past 5 years. Good news: crashes by seniors increased 60%. My plan: all Baby Boomers will be encouraged to ride motorcycles. Motorcycles will be available to Baby Boomers a low, government subsidized prices; helmets will be entirely optional for seniors. Not only might this reduce the congestion on our highways and the need for large parking lots, but we could see a reduction in the most aggressive (road-raged) Baby Boomers.

#2: Since most Baby Boomers are very patriotic and were not provided with a foreign war to fight during much of their adult lives, all Baby Boomers signing-up for Social Security will also automatically be registered for the Seniors Draft. While perhaps only the heartiest will pass the physical, these are precisely the ones we’d like to send off to war in order to save Social Security.

#3. As we all know, ours is a fast-paced digital age and should be governed by the most mentally fit. All Baby Boomers seeking high political office will be required to achieve “Level 3” in the popular computer game: Grand Theft Auto. This may not only reduce the number of Baby Boomers in government and the average age of the Supreme Court, but could help instill a certain up-to-date moral flexibility in our leaders.

#4. The great age of “drugs, sex, and rock-n-roll” arrived just as the first Baby Boomers were reaching adulthood. As fun as unprotected sex and hallucinogenic drugs were, they were soon found to be health hazards and declined in popularity when its was conclusively shown that LSD doesn't provide immunity from the laws of gravity. However, in an effort to rekindle this “age of love and irresponsibility”, municipalities will sponsor free raves at retirement homes (rooftops being the preferred venue) wherein fun drugs and alcohol will be freely available.

#5. And finally, all elevators will be required to play the soothing music of Montivanti and other 50s orchestras. While today’s seniors rather enjoy this music and young people are quite impervious to it, Boomers brought up on the Stones and Dillon, are destroyed by it! Studies at a respected Midwest University have shown that when trapped for 17 minutes in an elevator with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir repeatedly singing “Whistle while You Work”, 3 out of 5 Baby Boomers happily commit suicide. (Three additional minutes of Perry Como singing “hot diggity dog” will finish off the remaining two.)

Yes people, aging Baby Boomers represents a serious threat to our society and our way of life. But with perseverance and imagination we can still save our country by encouraging Baby Boomers to cheerfully self-destruct. Please help support my 5 point plan.

My vegeterrorist

In these dark days of our war on terrorism we all have to do our part. We have to guard against those who would subvert our American way of life – no matter whether they’re friends or even family. I want you to know that my wife and I take this responsibility seriously.

Last fall, after graduating with honors from high school, our only child went off to an expensive liberal-arts college in the East. We were pleased and very proud. We scrimped and saved all our lives to provide our daughter with this wonderful opportunity. We were quite prepared for the possibility that she might return educated as a communist, a radical feminist, or even a lesbian -- after all, what are elite Eastern colleges for? But to our dismay, she did not come back even as a socialist -- and she seems to like boys. But we were devastated when she announced that she’d become a vegetarian.

A vegetarian! Can you imagine? Both her mother and I are good card-carrying carnivores. Our daughter had a normal upbringing of Big Macs, Kentucky fried chicken, Ball Park franks, and All-beef burritos. At an early age and while growing up, she gave no hint of this addiction to plants that was to overtake her in college. When she left home, naturally we assumed that she’d continue her all-American flesh-eating ways. But nooo…she goes and becomes a vegetarian!

Friends, where did we go wrong? What could we have done to save her? We asked our daughter, “Why, oh why are you a vegetarian?” Is it a protest against the meat packing industry? Is it out of a sense of solidarity with the animal kingdom? Is it because you’re a health nut or want to lose weight? Or have you joined some religious cult? Is it because you hate your parents?

“No” she said thoughtfully, “it’s none of those good reasons. I just don’t want to eat meat anymore.”

Needless-to-say, we were shocked! We know it’s un-American to be a vegetarian. Besides the obvious affront to cowboys and the American West, and rugged barbequing Americans everywhere, vegetarians are linked to sissy protests over animal rights and endangered species. Some may be lulled into thinking that vegetarians are harmless, but we know different. We see clearly that vegetarians are a directly challenge to our God-given duty to inflict violence, pain, and death on who ever needs it.

Vegetarians are often opposed to hunting deer, rabbits, and the occasional baby seal, to baiting traps and poisoning coyotes or stray cats, to harpooning whales and porpoises, to chopping down ancient forests, and to executing prisoners. Why, they may even question our duty to bomb remote Asian villages when necessary! And we all know where that kind of thinking leads…it leads directly to a world over run with deer, rabbits, whales, big trees, criminals, and Afghanis.

Yes, vegetarians are a serious threat to our American way of life. When our daughter announced that she’d become a vegetarian, her mother and I realized we had to do something, but we discovered to our dismay that there are no organizations for deprogramming vegetarians. We couldn’t take her to someone who would help her over this addiction to plants. Not only are there no vegetarian deprogramming organizations, there’s not a single support group to help the friends and family members of vegetarians to cope with their confusion and pain. No counseling was available; we were on our own.

After much anguish and indecision, my wife and I finally decided we had to do something. We turned to Homeland Security. They kindly agreed to arrest her as a “terrorist”. Our hope is that six months or so of solitary confinement in some remote detention center without being charged with a crime or having access to legal council, our daughter will rethink this vegetarian business and learn to respect her right to live in “the land of the free”. She’ll come to see it’s her duty to eat hamburgers and hotdogs and things with lots of fat.

Friends, it was difficult to turn in our only daughter over to the Federal marshals, but we saw our duty and did it! There’s no telling how many people she might have infected with her plant-eating ways; how many other lives would have been ruined. Yes, we had to draw the line: communism, feminism, lesbianism OK, but eating only plants— too weird!

Each day that goes by with our daughter locked up is difficult, but my wife and I are trying to make the best of it. We try to look on the bright side -- saving a bundle in tuition bills. With this extra money we’re eating some great steaks, chops, and roasts at Michigan’s best restaurants. We’re doing our part. We’ve each gained 10 pounds. But keep in mind, it’s what every good American must do in this time of “war on terror”. We’re helping to protect you from vegeterrorists!

Free Windsor!

I only know what I read in the newspapers. As it happens, I usually read my morning paper over a cup of coffee at Starbucks across the street from my office. I’d like to tell you about an encounter I had there several months ago that ended up changing my life.

I was peacefully reading my Free Press this morning. The news of the day was not good: American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; dire predictions about the escalating cost of the war; and long lines at the Ambassador Bridge and the Tunnel connecting Windsor with Detroit. Evidently, because of heightened security, customs officials were being extra careful about people and things coming from Canada into the United States. The lines of trucks and cars are sometimes quite long, involving hours of waiting and costing American business time and money.

While I was quietly reading, a middle-aged, somewhat overweight gentleman sitting at the next table leaned over and in a gruff voice said: “You know who’s responsible don’t you?”

“Responsible for what?” I said.

“Responsible for the long lines at the Bridge and Tunnel, what do you think!”

Well, I didn’t want to appear out of touch, so I said: “U.S. Customs.” This guy looked at me with distain and shook his head. So I said: “Homeland security”.

“Nope” he said, “you aint even warm.”

“Osama bin Laden?” I said with some frustration.

“No! George Washington’s responsible!”

Well, there are times you find yourself in conversations that you’re sure are not headed anywhere useful, and this was one. But being somewhat impetuous, just for the heck of it, I asked: “OK, why is George Washington responsible for the long lines at Detroit’s Bridge and Tunnel?”

“Well, when ol Gen’l George defeated them Redcoats in the Revolutionary War, he allowed ‘em to slip back up in ta Canada. He didn’t hot-pusue’em and finish’em off when he had the chance. ‘Ol George wimped out before finishing the job! Now we got this mess of Redcoats on our northern flank, and every so often they break out and come down ‘ere an’ burn down our White House!”

Well, I was pretty sure that that hadn’t happened in a while, and besides, I said, “What’s that got to do with the long lines at the Bridge and Tunnel?”

This guy squinted at me, scrunched over closer like he was going to let me in on the secret of the universe and whispered: “Them redcoats swindled us out of South Detroit an’ we’re gonna to get it back! Them poor folks over there have been terrorized long enough.”

Now this new revelation raised a number of questions in my mind… chief of which was how can I get rid of this guy. “First of all” I said, “there IS no South Detroit. There’s an East Detroit, there’s a Westland, there’s a Down River, but no South Detroit! And even if there were, what makes you think its people are being terrorized?”

He sneered and said “have you ever looked at a map o’ Detroit?”

I said “sure, lots of times.”

“Well what’s that big town directly across the river from Detroit’s City Hall?”

“Hmm… Windsor,” I said.

“Hah! That what the Redcoats call it! Me and my buddies know it by its true name: ‘South Detroit’! Many of the folks who live there, leave their homes everyday to work in the Detroit. They acquire such necessities as beer, gasoline, and tobacco in Detroit and smuggle ‘em back to their starving kids each evening. It’s heartbreaking to realize that for over 200 years, the good people of South Detroit have had to endure this oppression. How much longer can we allow them to live under the yoke of the British tyranny? How much longer must they wait to be free?”

I was skeptical. I knew that the Windsor Tunnel and Ambassador Bridge weren’t 200 years old and had this idea that in the war on terror, the British are actually on our side. I’d heard enough. I went back to my newspaper, hoping this guy would take the hint and disappear.

But he persisted, “Don’t you want to know how we’re goin’a do it?”

Before I could stop myself, I said “Do what?”

“Take back South Detroit…what’d think? We got the freedom fighters all lined up.”

At this point it occurred to me that perhaps it was my civic duty to hear more. If not Homeland Security, then there might be some mental health officials out looking for this guy.

“Well I suppose you’re going to write to your Congressman to negotiate the return of Windsor…er South Detroit to the U.S.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “Are you crazy? Congress‘s had 200 years to do som’in about this injustice and it ain’t done noth’in! It’s worthless!”

Well, I knew that wasn’t true! Indignantly I informed him: “We have the best darn Congress that money can buy. Just ask a any lobbyist!”

“No” he said, “Even if Congress tried, we’d prob’ly just get stuck with some worthless property up on Lake Superior in exchange for South Detroit. Me and 300 Michigan patriots are gonna do the job ourselves.”

“We got it all figger’d out. We’ll liberate South Detroit with our Expeditionary Force. We’re gonna disguise ourselves as Walleye fishermen, rent boats on Belle Isle, and attack the South Detroit waterfront. You wouldn’t believe it,” he said. “Our reconnaissance tells us that the redcoats left their entire waterfront wide open to attack! Yes sir, well jus row across the river like Gen’l George did crossin’ the Potomac to save Washington!”

I thought about it for a moment and realized he might be right. It’s unlikely that the Windsor police were trained to repell an invasion by 300 heavily armed Walleye fishermen landing on their waterfront.

“Our boys will spread out and seize South Detroit’s key installations -- night clubs, casinos, and the Hiram Walker distillery. By evening, all South Detroit will be safe in American hands. The grateful people will cheer us as their liberators and gladly reimburse us for our travel expenses.”

I must say, felt a little uneasy about this whole idea. So I asked, “You sure all this is necessary just to reduce the lines at the Tunnel and Bridge?”

“You don’t get it, do you? This ain’t ‘bout traffic! This here’s ‘bout liberty, freedom and globalization the American way! Lots’a Americans go ta Windsor to fritter away their money on gambling and low cost drugs. Only American companies should be allowed to profit from our ignorant, our impulsive, our huddled masses yearning to be well.”

Triumphantly razing his finger, this guy declared “Detroit can no longer exist half Canadian and half free! By reclaiming South Detroit, we strike a new blow for freedom-lovin’ American companies everywhere. Once Detroit is united under the American flag, our companies will experience a new burst of profit, conceived in market access, and dedicated to the proposition that all men (and women) are fair game!”

Well, friends, it’s been some months since I had this chance encounter at Starbucks. I must admit, it has changed my life. No, I’ve not joined the Michigan volunteers to aid in their pursuit of a pre-emptive strike against the Windsor’s redcoats.

No, it’s far more serious than that: I don’t read my morning paper at Starbucks any more!