Dear Reader:

I am a television volume control operator when I am reading a book but just want to glance at an interesting program occasionally when I look up from the pages.

Up and down goes the volume … this past Sunday I finished the seventh ( next to the last book in the Edisto Island Mysteries) so I made a snack and turned up the volume… I heard a. nice-looking gentleman exclaim : ” Two-thirds of all humans who have ever lived on earth past 65… are alive today! “

” WHAT?… Seriously?”

Before I could recover from that amazing fact… I heard “One half of the children born in modernized countries today-will, not only celebrate their 100th birthday, but some could see their 150th”!!!

” EXCUSE ME?”

The PBS program was called “Life’s Third Age” with Ken Dychtwald. I think most of my Baby Boomer friends ,who were teachers and/or state employees, were happy to just have our state retirement and Social Security benefits … add a small tax/deferred annuity and a life insurance policy and pray hard it would carry us into the sunset.

Instead I hear the commentator project that marketers are now turning their attention to the new Baby Boomer market because many still have thirty more years of life. Consumers over fifty… now account for more than half of all spending and they control over 70% of our country’s net worth! .

Obviously I wasn’t ( and still aren’t) in that Baby Boomer group and obviously they weren’t teachers. But hey… since I was diagnosed with cancer in 2008-and since I was eligible for Social Security Disability Benefits… my mind/boggling medical costs have been basically covered with me picking up a minute leftover amount. The medical costs far exceed the total amount I was salary paid throughout my long teaching career- crazy right? Good crazy but still crazy! God IS GOOD!

And that brings us to the most important question we all most answer? What are we going to do with the years we are given? Do we want to be remembered as a successful entrepreneur or remembered as someone who made a significant difference in others lives?

And it isn’t that we can’t do both… but it does require some re- prioritizing-learning to include others and their welfare in our future plans. Remembering to add lots of new materials and colors to our tapestry of life. A tapestry that made a significant difference to other lives.

So until tomorrow… It is time to consider what a world with a billion people over sixty will look like-how the influence of this age segment will affect society, business, politics, health care and the marketplace . ( I think if they look like Tom Cruise… we should be okay!) 😅

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

One thing we must remember is not to stop dreaming when we ” retire ” -the possibility of a whole new frontier is calling us-we have time!

Today Berkeley County Schools and Dorchester Two schools started their first day of school with Charleston starting Wednesday! Everyone got off to a great start!

After visiting with Ben -I dropped some back to school bags off for the kids and then Mollie and I celebrated the first day of school with lunch out! 🤣