Image by roland via Flickr

Throughout history, every generation has effectively annoyed the previous generation of their parents with their musical tastes, fashion and behaviors.

“Hey!  Turn down that Gregorian chanting in there!  Your mother and I are trying to have a conversation in here about the Renaissance! And get a haircut while you’re at it!”

Each generation of parents was sure the world would spin-off its axis if any more Sinatra/Elvis/Beetles/U2/Gangsta Rap, etc. was played at ear-splitting volume.  One generation’s tastes might run along the lines of Fred Astaire movies while another’s tastes leaned more toward Beavis and Butthead reruns.  Up to this point in the history of civilization, suffering parents could cling to the hope and certain knowledge that at some point their next generation would launch and live on their own, thus ending the annoyances the younger ones created for the older folks when in close proximity.

But now that has changed.  Medical advances are helping us all to live longer.  The concept of retirement communities has taken hold and is widely favored by those who can afford it and desire that lifestyle.  The largest mushrooming surge in an aging population group has Baby Boomers moving into their Golden Years now, as 10,000 Boomers are turning 65 every day.

And guess where those aging Baby Boomers are choosing to live?  That’s right, in the same retirement communities populated by those of their parent’s generation who are now also living longer.  To their dismay, the older retirees are finding out that those kids they found so annoying as teenagers and young adults are just as hard to tolerate in their late 50’s and 60’s.

These younger retirees are now moving into retirement communities and playing the same loud music that drove their parent’s generation nuts 45-50 years earlier.  Elbowing their way onto committees within those retirement centers, the retired Boomers are scheduling more Stone’s cover bands than Glenn Miller Orchestra-type acts, and initiating recycling initiatives to dispose of their empties whereas the older residents would just as soon continue to hide their empty Depends boxes in the outgoing trash.

What’s that funny smell coming from apartment 349?  Oh, it’s just some of those kids in their mid-60’s smoking a little “Mother Nature”….just like they did back in the late 60’s while listening to the latest Hendrix album.

Tie dyed T-shirts are beginning to take the place of those pastel-colored one piece jump suits seemingly favored by retired men in the later years.  (Where do they sell those things, anyway?)  Harley’s are being parked in the garages alongside the oldster’s Grand Marquis land yachts.  An entire recent NPR show focused upon the phenomenon of STDs now becoming common in previously sterile shuffle board communities.

Is there any justice in all of this?  Sure.  There is a whole other generation loaded with annoying habits and tastes also aging right behind the Boomers that is certain to be just as aggravating.