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The snow is melting here in the mid-west, daylight savings time begins this week, snowbirds are returning to their northern nests and Spring is only a couple of weeks away. Can there be a better time to celebrate the arrival of warmer weather than by attending the Blogging Boomers' Carnival?
Wondering what's new in fashion this Spring...that you can realistically wear to the carnival? Discover seven new trends that can work for boomer babes, at Fabulous after 40.
Ready to throw off that cabin fever and engage in a good debate? If so, head over to the Contemporary Retirement tent to discover where you can have your say on a whole range of subjects from the ebay boycott to 'Cell phones are the root of all evil.'
...or...how about engaging in a little generational conflict by bringing your kids to the carnival with you? At the Gen Plus tent you can take a look at how fear affects the risk-taking of 50-plussers against that of 20-somethings.
Do you have aging parents who need a little help? If so, visit the Boomer Chronicles tent.
Today, on average, it takes 17.5 weeks to find a new job, say the experts. Does that mean you can take it easy for the first 16 and then pick it up? Of course not. For a week-to-week to-do list for middle-aged job seekers visit Life Two's tent.
Be transported to another part of the earth and visit a very special school, where learning to be moral, caring human beings is its mission, and how this was a very special moment in the life of one family.
Kids have things to worry about now, for sure. In the 50s and 60s, we didn't know what ozone was. Global warming? Never heard of it. Gas stations were fighting to gain the business of our parents, not putting surly clerks behind bulletproof glass to sell them fuel at per-gallon prices approaching the minimum wage.
But today's children have never felt the paralysing fear that an air raid siren would cause, as a kid would scramble to get underneath a desk at school in a futile effort to cover up from the effects of a nuclear blast.
It's time to have some fun and laugh at the recession, global warming, ozone levels and even the inflationary pricing of commodities.
If that's at all possible. Here are a few jokes to bring a smile to your face regarding the recession we're not in. Yet...
Jokes generally are in decline, according to humor experts, but not here at the carnival. When Spring is ready to sprout, golf jokes begin circulating. One reason is that golfers have plenty of time to tell jokes, both between shots and in the clubhouse. Another is that golfers often play with people they don't know well, such as acquaintances on business outings, and telling jokes is a quick and harmless way to build rapport.
A guy comes home exhausted from a round of golf. "Everyhting was going fine," he explains to his wife, "but then Harry had a heart attack and died on the 10th tee."
"Oh, that's awful!" his wife says.
"You're not kidding. For the whole back nine it was hit the ball, drag Harry, hit the ball, drag Harry."
Some of the jokes are sexist holdovers from a bygone era, when pre-boomer men treated golf courses as executive male hangouts and weren't worried about political correctness. But most are disguised expressions of guilt about abandoning wives in favor of golf.
Jake is about to chip onto the green at his local golf course when a long funeral procession passes by. He stops in mid-swing, doffs his cap, closes his eyes and bows in prayer. His playing companion is deeply impressed.
"That's the most thoughtful and touching thing I've ever seen." he says.
Jake replies, "Yeah, well, we were married 35 years."
And golf jokes tap into the emotions that all golfers share, particularly those created by the game's maddening difficulty. "Frustration is funny," said Don Steinberg, who several years ago compiled GQ magazine's list of the best jokes of all time. "Anytime people feel powerless, they come up with jokes that, in a small way, help them understand the world a little better and feel more at ease."
God and St. Peter reluctantly decide they must punish a priest who played hooky from his flock on a Sunday morning to play golf. God lets the priest hit the shot of his life: a 410-yard hole-in-one.
"Why did you do that?" St. Peter asks, to which God replies: "Who's he going to tell?"
Source: The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2008
