Up until a few years back I shied away from admitting being of the baby boomer generation. I didn’t wish to be considered “old”. I remember my daughter, when she was a 21 year old working in an investment banking company, had told me of a smart 27-year old investment banker who was interested in her. She discouraged him from showering attention on her because he was “too old”. Too old! I thought, what does that make me, decades older – ancient? When my son’s wife became pregnant, I was elated, yet I planned to ask that I be called Mama by my grandchild. But when my grandson Eliott was born in July 2009, I couldn’t help celebrating the thought that now, here’s one who will call me Lola! It has been that way ever since. Without embarrassment, I can declare to the world, I am a baby boomer Lola, graciously and gracefully advancing in age and somewhat wiser — once a blooming teen of the 60’s, a lover and hater of tissed poofed hair, still a nostalgic for old romance and hootenannies, still a swooning fan of Beatles songs, and now a striving student of the modern tech world, an aspiring poet and songwriter, a dreamer, a doting Lola very much in love with the cantankerousness of youth. Also now, a very “young” blogger.

Perhaps not too known by the younger generations, baby boomers have gone through richly historical and eventful era marked by the Vietnam War, the Hippie movement, the Beatles, American President Kennedy’s assassination, the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, rock ‘n roll, Elvis Presley, the first walk on the moon, the marvel of the first personal computer, the prolonged dominance of the mini skirt.

For myself, memory of that era brings to mind special recollection of my one year stint in Greensberg, Pennsylvania as an American Field Service (AFS) exchange student from the Philippines. I have some myriad stories to tell from my experiences and culture shocks, but that will come later. And oh yes, my first crush … that, too, I’ll tell you later.

Linda P. Jacob