It’s ‘tude…attitude… that makes the difference between an aging Boomer man and woman…and a Louie-Louie guy or girl. The average Boomer generation man or woman is just that…average. The sum total of Boomer thinking on really important subjects can be summed up in one word…and the word is “Huh?” Their political debate is about Hillary Clinton’s (alleged) cleavage, Barak Obama’s missing flag lapel button, and Rudy Giuliani’s (alleged) love life. Their interest in international news centers around the latest on Princess Di. When they rock on…it’s to songs by Tommy James and the Shondells.
All you have to do to be a Baby Boomer is be born between 1946 and 1964. So big deal. You get born and you hang around for a while…and zap, you’re a Baby Boomer. No ‘tude is necessary. And in most cases, no ‘tude is involved. Mostly, Boomer men just go to work, come home, drink beer and watch tv. Boomer women go to work, come home and fix dinner, and go shopping. Wow. Those of us who are Louie-Louie guys and girls are also grown ups… with jobs and families and mortgages…. but deep down inside, we’re never going to stop being guys and girls. We have lives. My Lady Wonder Wench rides her horse, I fly my airplane…I chase her around the house…and she seldom runs too fast for me to catch her…even though I have bad knees. While most Boomer women are shopping… most Boomer men are watching sports on tv. Sometimes they’re watching two different games at once. Three during the PLAY OFFS.
Some Boomer men pay more attention to their sports teams than to their wives…because they figure that even though a wife may be faithful and loving, she’ll never make it to those PLAY OFFS, even if she bulks up and works out during the off season.
I’m amazed that most Boomer men HAVE wives…because Boomer men always feel they need to get something concrete to go on to understand people…both men and women… something concrete…such as his or her batting average against left handed pitching during night home games on Mondays in July. And many Boomer women have trouble hitting curves.
Of course, things could be even worse. In some countries, they take sports way too seriously… in the sense that they kill each other over soccer…which I feel is excessive… especially for regular season games.
No question about it. I have grey hair, and my chest has slipped a bit…and when I’m flying my little airplane lately, I find myself having to stop to think which one of those levers puts the wheels down and which one stops the engine. And I must admit that in the event of war, the army wouldn’t let me in if everybody else was dead. But my Lady Wonder Wench says I still have class, style and charm up the wazoo. So…Yeah !
I’m a typical Louie-Louie Generation guy. Louie-Louie has been playing in the soundtrack of my life forever. It’s a status symbol. Only people who have been around for a while can remember Louie-Louie. And most of us also remember when the tv took five minutes to warm up…and it was black and white…and a couple of bucks was a decent allowance …and you played baseball with no adults around…got a problem with a call and it became a “do over”…and there were candy cigarettes and records in the juke box at the diner…and there was carbon paper…and gas was 35 cents a gallon…we remember that.
Louie-Louie is our kind of song. It’s a tune with ‘tude’. And Big Louie, his own bad self…always says…”tude is goooud.” There’s no doubt in what’s left of my mind that ‘tude is the biggest difference between Louie-Louie girls and guys and Baby Boomer men and women.
Of course… sometimes ‘tude makes things more difficult than they really need to be. For example…‘tude is the reason why it takes a zillion guy sperm cells, zooming around all over the place dressed in their little speedos… never even considering asking directions… because they’re certain that they know exactly where they are and where they’re going…trying to locate a single female egg… despite the fact that the egg… relatively speaking…is the size of the Empire State Building. And the egg doesn’t make things any easier. It just sits there…quietly…modestly…refusing to say things like, “Hey…over here…big boy.” In both cases, that’s ‘tude making things more difficult than they need to be. But we feel it’s worth it.
Baby Boomers are men and women. We’re guys and girls. We’ve got the ‘tude of the tune coming through for us big time…especially when the years are piling on, and pimple people with baseball caps on backwards and rings through their noses start ignoring us “old timers”… The ‘tude of the tune helps us to stand up straight… and remember who we are. We’ve paid some dues. We’ve done some things. And we’ve got plans for doing even more. We’re old enough to know right from wrong, and strong enough to take our pick.
Dick’s Details Quiz – All answers are available in this week’s PodCast at www.DickSummer.com
1- What do they sell at penisland.com?
2- How did the judges at Wimbledon crack everybody up in 2006?
3- Where should you be inserting your aspirin?
Scoring:
3 right – You’re like The Kingsmen’s Louie-Louie.
2 right – You’re like The Sandpipers’ Louie-Louie.
1 right – You’re like Pavarotti’s Louie-Louie.
0 right – You’re like Pat Boone’s Louie-Louie.
Lots of Louie-Louie Generation guys and girls are smart enough to keep their bodies in pretty good shape. I do push ups and ride my bike. My Lady Wonder Wench does floor exercises that she never lets me watch, because she says they would drive me wild with lust… which seems like a pretty good idea to me…but for some reason not to her…and she rides her horse. I don’t like doing push ups, and Ms. Wench doesn’t like doing exercises…who would. But it’s worth the sweat.
But when you’re facing pimples, backwards baseball caps and nose rings, no matter what kind of shape you’re in… resist the temptation to maim and kill. Just remember Big Louie’s advice…” grab a grin and you’ll win.” Don’t hit…just laugh…out loud…and long. Because they can’t take the ‘tude. And believe me…from personal experience… a backwards baseball cap pimple person’s nose rings clanking in frustration is such a satisfying sound. Â
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