Tanning and its legacy

Beginning around age 13, everything else took a back seat when the warm spring sunshine finally began to wash down on my family’s backyard.

I, and bastions like me, would arm myself with a spray bottle full of ice water, grab the baby oil tinted with iodine, cover my lips with zinc oxide, throw on a pair of shorts and a tank top (if it wasn’t quite warm enough for the swimsuit) and arrange myself so that no shadows could touch me for as many hours as the sun beat down on a towel on our back patio.  Every 20 minutes or so, it would be time to check out the tan line – a surefire way to monitor progress.

This was no frivolous activity. Our tans were serious stuff in those days.  Skin that had been covered during the cold season revealed itself in the spring to appear pasty white to those of us without olive skin or darker, so we gave ourselves no choice.  Shorts and bare arms required a tan—period.

Whether it was hearing songs of California, “where the girls all get so tan” or worshipping the pages of bronzed beauties in Seventeen Magazine, we understood at a young age that un-tanned legs, especially, represented pale unattractiveness (boys in my classes would actually cluck and call them ‘chicken-legs’ . . )

Arms, legs, and face, at a minimum, had to become a shade of brown dark enough to hide flaws and give us what we considered an outdoor, healthy look while clearing up any unsightly ‘zit’ activity in the process.

So we stayed at it – until suddenly reports began to come out about the thinning Ozone layer as well as the number of people being diagnosed with skin cancers.  The aging and damaging effects that tanning causes seemed to have been understood by women in Europe and Asia for some time. Americans, it seemed were among the last to figure this out and some continue to bake on beaches and poolsides anyway.

I no longer tan. I may sit outside for 20 minutes or so to soak up some D-rays with a protective SPF factor slathered on, but have retired all natural suntan products altogether.  How my face fared so well after ravaging it for so many years must be a function of heredity, so I am one of the fortunate ones in terms of wrinkles.  Trust me, I don’t take that part for granted.

The aftereffects of those years, I am finding,  have manifested themselves in me both psychologically as well as physically.  For example,  I can’t, to this day, look down at my un-tanned legs and feel I can display them in a skirt or shorts without getting a spray tan.  I can’t, in all good conscience, wear a sleeveless shirt or sweater because for so long I detested my “pasty” skin tone, reinforced by a shallow ex-husband’s cutting remarks when I needed them least. It is both a curse and a handicap, however I’m not at all sure if therapy would be worth it at this point.

Thankfully, my daughter’s generation doesn’t seem to have these hang-ups. Pale skin and a peaches-and-cream complexion, devoid of even blush or bronzer is a badge of beauty now. In magazines, tanned skin seems to be rarely featured and chances are, the tan sported by the models depicted in those ads is not natural — or they no doubt would be robbing themselves of precious career years.

Although my face was spared, other parts of me were not.  A few years back I noticed a strangely shaped mole appearing on the inside of thigh just above my right knee.  I have moles all over me (in my Greek background, moles are called tiny “olives” and considered attractive), so there had to be something very different looking about this one for me to show it to my doctor.

The doc sent me to a dermatologist, where a biopsy was performed. Before long, I got the news.  There are three common types of skin cancer – basal cell, squamous cell and the dreaded melanoma.  My mole revealed that the third, most serious type was at play.

Another round of surgery went deeper, requiring a plastic surgeoon’s skilled hands to take a wider portion of skin and pull together the tolerance areas around it, forming a scar in the shape of an ‘S’.

To my relief, I was told that they were able to collect any of the cancerous cells, dubbing surrounding skin free of them.

Two years later, another such mole arrived on the opposite thigh, however, and I went through the same trauma.

I am indeed a survivor, evidenced by scars on both thighs. I now see a dermatologist every six months for a complete, head-to-toe body scan, hoping against hope that whatever else may surface can be caught at early stages, like the first two.

My point here?  If you, like me, spent an inordinate amount of time in the sun in your younger years, whether you burned frequently or not, seeing a dermatologist for a scan at least once a year is an excellent idea.  The effects of the sun’s rays from our childhood and teenaged years can creep up when we least expect it – take it from someone who thought that her Mediterranean heritage would protect her from it.

I wish you sunshine and smiles. But bask in the first one rarely while indulging in the second one often.

Does your name reveal your age?

Did you ever catch yourself guessing the age of someone just by hearing his or her first name?

In which era would you guess people with names like Debbie, Bob, Linda, George,  Bill, Jim,  or Michelle were born?

It’s true that your name just might reveal more about you than you realize. And if you’re a Kathy or a Gilbert, it’s safe to bet that you’re near or within Boomer age.

The only people I know that, for generation after generation, who tend to name their children traditionally (after relatives or saints –who were probably named for saints to begin with) are ethnic groups like mine.

Ever see the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding?   As the main character’s father proceeds to introduce his “dry as toast” in-laws-to-be to his crowd of relatives on his front lawn, he repeats, “And over here are Nick, Nick, Diane, Diane, Nicki, George, Dino, Nick, Diane  . . .”

From 1946 to 1964, the most fashionable girls’ names were Mary, Linda and Lisa while top names for boys were James, Robert and Michael, according to records at the Social Security Administration.

So why don’t you hear of babies named similarly these days?  Is it because these names have, well, become dated?

Among the most popular baby names right now are Emily and Jacob – which don’t sound all that new age to me, but are attractive and traditional-sounding nonetheless.  Other popular names are Madison, Isabella, Ashley, Christopher, Ethan, Joshua, Andrew, and Olivia.

I remember hearing criticism for naming my now 20-something daughter Sophia back in the ‘80s because one set of grandparents considered it too “fresh off the boat.”  As fate would have it, her name became one of the most popular girls’ names over the past decade or so.

Did I know that?  Heck no (does my choice of words tell you how old I am???)  I just wanted to name her something melodic enough to match her last name (an Italian one). And, SHOOT,  it didn’t hurt that the word itself is the Greek word for wisdom while representing a religious martyr and a relative as well.

Many of the rest of us have names like Linda, Bob, Jim, Pat, Carol, Sue, Ron, Jerry and Wally.

And just think about the name Mary. For most of the 1950s, it was the most popular girls’ name in the country.  By 2005, it didn’t even make the top 50.

Cultural anthropologist Robbie Blinkoff implies that Boomer names tend to be  “vanilla and middle-of-the-road.”

Today, names can be unisex, illustrated by the  MacKenzies, Tylers, Taylors,  Alexes and Sydneys, Tracys, and Stacys among us.

And as luck would have it, names like Sandy, Gary, Pat and Joan are reserved for – you guessed it — friends, bosses, and  grandparents.

Darn it! Heck!  Shoot!  Now I have to write another article just on Boomer word usage . . . .

Mothers and their grown daughters: coming full circle

I’ve got to admit it. Even though I know I am not alone in being a motherless daughter at this stage of my life, whenever I encounter a lady around my age who talks about spending time with her mom, a pang of envy comes over me.

My mom was still in her 60s when she passed away from post-operative complications of  heart surgery. My now nearly 25-year old daughter was only eleven years old at the time, now able to remember only bits and pieces about special times with her “yiayia.”

Recalling the countless times when Mom rallied to my side to help me pack, clean up my old place and set up my new one throughout both my single and married years, I was struck with a sense of pride in the tradition of mother-daughter bonding she left behind for me to emulate.

In supporting my daughter Sophia with her own transition this past weekend, I know that if I had not kept constantly busy with doing important tasks – such as helping her make lists, emptying boxes, finding logical places in her new apartment for her belongings, piling up giveaways and throw-away items and sorting laundry – I would no doubt have sat down and had a good cry.

The road leading to the kind of relationship my daughter and I have has not always been strewn with flowers, especially during her early teens. Having only one child, I constantly questioned my parenting skills, wondering just what chaos I might have wreaked on her later life.

And as she reached her 20s, I am certain the grey hair that I now so regularly mask became more abundant knowing of the risks she took. The bond of which I speak is examined in depth in the book, Friends for Life: Enriching the Bond between Mothers and Their Adult Daughters,  by authors Susan Jones and Marilyn Nissenson. The book’s description includes words to which I can relate: “There is a razor-fine line between dispensing advice and nagging, between expectations and unconditional support, and the authors argue that recognizing these boundaries is essential to a healthy and loving relationship with a daughter.”

To my delight (and as an answer to my prayers) Sophia is now a busy and successful businesswoman, blowing my hair back with the kind of commitment and creativity I somehow knew lay deep within her.

Whenever we spend one-on-one time together, especially when attacking projects such as these,  I am reminded of  my daughter’s adolescent days, when  “picking up” her clothes meant seeing everything piled on her bedroom floor suddenly being jettisoned down the laundry chute, followed by a quick, “I’m finished. Can I go now?”

Sophia’s newfound domesticity is a breath of fresh air after having seen her living environment take a backseat for so many years.  With a penchant to mix the traditional with the new, she excitedly talks about her plans for a big IKEA run to buy things for her apartment along with the pride she takes in two little 1970s-style contemporary loveseats she displays in her living room once belonging to her grandmother.

And so life comes full circle. I can’t imagine the joy I will experience if someday I am blessed with a grandchild or two, with fond memories of how my mother again flew to my side to help me with young motherhood.

In the end, the one-liner that seems to creep out of me whenever my daughter exclaims her awe in my commitment to help at times like these is always the same:  “I’m doing this because my mom did it for me. And maybe someday, if you are lucky enough to have a little girl,  perhaps you’ll do the same for her.”

Author asks, ‘How will Boomers want to be remembered?’

We staged sit-ins to protest a war from which our friends and family members were coming home in flag-draped coffins.

Women burned bras and found freedom in a little pill that gave us a sense of sexually equality.

And we swore that rock ‘n roll would never die.

They say that there is a sense of restlessness in the Boomer generation, as if there is unfinished business.

In his book, 10,000 Days: A Call to Arms for the Baby Boom Generation, author David Mills tells us just what this phenomenon may be.

He believes Baby Boomers lost their way after their endless protests, disdain of the “establishment” and other tremendous changes took place in the 1960s. As Boomers grew to adulthood, they ventured into the business world, raised families, accumulated wealth and discovered that pretty cars, nice homes and big screen TVs weren’t so bad after all.

Mills asks, “Was it worthy of a generation that proclaimed it would change the world? Those are the thoughts percolating in the back of many minds now that the 21st century is under way.”

So will Boomers take up the reins again? The author challenges us to make the next 10,000 days the best years of our generation, taking into consideration that many of us now have the time and the money to think lofty thoughts – thoughts about something other than ourselves and our bank accounts.

“The question begs. Is it time for Baby Boomers to step back into the fray? “ he queries, calling us to recapture some of the idealism we so staunchly swore would never leave us.

In his book, Mills explores how we got to this point in our history as well as how to leave this world a better place for the next generation. He interviewed dozens of Baby Boomers for their perspective on the past, present and future for the book, asking them how we might take the lead once again.

“Our final chapter has not been written. What will our legacy be?,” Mills writes. “What we did when we were young — or what we did when we were old?”

The Real Deal: Finding Love in Midlife

I thought my own mid-life marriage (one of us the product of a terminated long-term marriage and the other a never-married partner aged 45-52)  was a rarity. But when two close 50+ female friends of mine recently became engaged and the same phenomenon occurred, I began to wonder if this was becoming a trend.

A USA TODAY analysis of Census records of Americans ages 45-55 shows that the percentage of those who said they had never been married in 2006 had doubled since 1990, and the percentage of those who were currently married had dropped by 9%.

My friends and I are among a small but growing group of older adults involved in marriages where one or both partners are marrying for the first time after age 45.   Awhile back, older singles would have been known as the “spinsters” or “confirmed “bachelors.”  But perhaps longer life spans now mean that there is still plenty of life ahead. Pair that up with the Boomer’s “perennially young” attitude and a greater number of aging singles in the population, it seems more likely that those who want to marry actually will.

It’s not easy getting a handle on this segment of the singles population, since no entity seems to track first marriages at specific ages. The closest count is the median age at first marriage, which in 2006 (the latest year for which data are available) was at its highest point: men at 27.5 and women at 25.5, according to the U.S. Census.

A tally by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention taken over a 20-year period, 1970 to 1990, shows that in 1990, only 0.4% of women and 0.6% of men married for the first time at ages 45 to 49.

According to the most recent data from the federal Survey of Income and Program Participation, which includes marriage, 13% of those who wed in 2003 were 45 and older and that number is increasing as we speak.

Internet dating has, of course, enabled many of the later-life first marriages. It’s only in recent years that some sites have started monitoring that demographic.  According to USA Today, among them is Yahoo Personals, based in Santa Clara, Calif., which reports a 33% increase from January 2006 to November 2007 among users ages 45 and over who say they have never been married.

As I mentioned in my earlier article, dating websites have been reinventing themselves since online dating took off in the mid-1990s. They’ve begun emphasizing a more scientific approach, which often includes compatibility and personality testing.

Why have these individuals never taken a walk down that flower-strewn aisle? The biggest reason cited is that they would rather go to the grave unmarried than marry the wrong person. In fact, marrying the wrong person is cited as their number one fear  — by a margin of 10 to 1.

When I think about why my friends and I did not let that stand in our way, only one common thread among us pops into my head.  That is that none of us lost hope or faith in the institution of marriage itself.

Funny thing. None of us found our life mates through internet dating.  One couple met in a classy local restaurant/bar surrounded by good friends, the other at an ethnic festival, and as for myself, he was the brother of a good friend whom I had never gotten to know beyond the usual pleasantries when we would bump into one another over a 20 year period when I was married. It was not until I left my ex that I was invited to the same social event he was attending and found that he had been interested for a very long time and, being a gentleman, never let on.

All of us lived with our future mates for a while first, one person in each couple had grown or nearly grown children, and although we would have had no problem with living together in perpetuity, we somehow decided that proclaiming our commitment and love for one another publicly and/or religiously was the way to seal the deal.

I have to admit that it makes me feel great when stories like this give the single people in my life hope that it can still happen for them.

The key in all three of our cases, however, is that we all got out there and circulated with people we knew.

Networking, in my mind, is just as important in our personal lives as it in the business world. And although there are never any guarantees in life, marrying in your 40s and 50s make it more likely that you will have (1) better judgement in a potential mate (2) fewer of the hang-ups you did when dating in your 20s and 30s and a LOT more life experience in common (3) usually grown or nearly-out-the-door children if one of you was married before, and (4) a gratifying feeling that you have just teamed up with someone who understands that growing old together just may be the most beautiful thing of all.

Of Innocence and Immigrants

It was ordained in 1973, but I had decided long before that.

Just as soon as I had my college diploma in hand, I would make a beeline back to California. It helped that the Beach Boys were falsetto-ing surfing songs while the Mamas and the Papas were literally endorsing my plans.

Knowing all too well of my goals, my parents personally drove me from Indiana to my native San Francisco. Mom and Dad  had moved us  “back East” to my dad’s hometown of Muncie, Indiana to open their own business when I was nine — old enough to have remembered what life was like in the Golden State. Although I was 21 and could legally do whatever I wanted, they informed me I had exactly two weeks to find a job and a place to live, or I’d have to go back with them. So I summoned every shred of determination rather than risk the bursting of parental bubbles.

With a fistful of dimes, the “help wanted’ section of the San Francisco Chronicle and my mother by my side, I survival-dialed from a sit-down payphone in the lobby of the St. Francis Hotel. We weren’t staying at this high class establishment. It was just a lovely place to use a pay phone while being strategically located in case of impending interviews.

My degree was in secondary level teaching, but the jobs I was calling about were far from academic. I would take anything that would keep me in my beloved San Francisco. And after being sent on a few dead-end interviews the first week, I landed a full time job at a mortgage banking firm in an art-deco building on Sansome Street for $550 per month.

One condition down; one to go.

Rents in San Francisco were pretty much out of my income range-to-be even in the early ’70s. Being of Greek descent, I unashamedly decided I would play the ethnic card when looking for living quarters. I called the two local Greek Orthodox churches and began asking around for elderly immigrant ladies looking for a renter. Both referrals I received were out in the Avenues, where post-war San Francisco saw thousands of densly-placed  “row houses” built, each with a patch of grass in front that were mostly paved over by now.  The first referral was for a garden apartment whose windows faced a steep hill. The warped linoleum flooring and the lack of sunlight were not welcoming.

The second house was on 42nd Avenue near Fulton Avenue, way out by the beach, where I once frolicked with my brothers at the now condo’ed over Playland. A kindly lady, whom I will dub Mrs. M, greeted my mother and I, communicating in Greek as she led us back to a spare bedroom next to her own. The room had two twin beds with matching green bedspreads and pictures of ladies sporting parasols perched atops the headboards.

The rent? $80 per month. I was good to go. I figured I could bank a lot of my earnings for my own little studio apartment before long.

Before he left, my father bought me a black and white TV set on a rolling stand, handed me $40 and wished me luck. He said I should “tough it out” now that I had made the decision to move so far away from them. Mom just had a worried look on her face.

I began getting used to the commute to the Financial District, bagging my lunch each day to save my earnings. Co-workers chuckled as I arrived with an umbrella in hand during my first week. After eleven years in Indiana, I had forgotten that overcast skies didn’t mean rain in the middle of a San Francisco summer.

A rhythm took hold as I got up at the same time each morning, boarded a bus full of open newspapers, took the ceremonial walk from the bus to my office and pretended that being an accounts payable clerk was an important job.  In my mind, the most important thing about it was that this job was in San Francisco.  This first foray into full-fledged adulthood was not quite what I had had in mind, but I reasoned it would have to do until I could find a path to a more satisfying existence.

Mrs. M sometimes offered breakfast or invited me to join her for dinner. At age 76, she moved slowly, kindly spoke haltingly to me (to which I mustered my best responses in broken Greek sentences) and never threw anything away that had been given to her.

I was convinced she was unaware of how some of her displayed memorabilia appeared to an outsider. In the breakfast room, the built-in breakfront boasted family photos, little porcelain ladies with parasols similar to the artwork in my bedroom, prizes from Cracker Jacks boxes and a number of items I could tell were given to her by family members. One was a plaster ashtray with a figure of a golfer posed ready to tee off. At the bottom was a saying, “ Old golfers never die – they just lose their balls.”

The living room was old-world-formal with overstuffed furniture surrounded by heavy silk drapery hanging onto the floor. At least six inches of fabric splayed itself at the base of each drapery panel. I couldn’t understand why they had never been hemmed to the appropriate length, so one day I asked her daughter, who visited several times a week.

The explanation was touching. Because immigrants like Mrs. M had so little when they arrived in this country, they were eager to display everything they had accumulated over the years to demonstrate their newfound prosperity. The extra fabric was a way to showcase their hard-won success – an excess making it clear that they had “arrived” at last in the new world.

One night I heard my matron moaning. Terrified she might be having a heart attack, I banged on her door and asked what was wrong. “TSARLI HORS!!” was all she said. I asked her to repeat herself. “TSARLI HORS!” My Greek-American brain finally unscrambled her response. The old lady had an excruciating charley horse. She asked me to call her daughter when it seemed evident her pain would not subside. Her daughter arrived and after a while, I peeked into her room to see if she was better. There, I saw a mustard plaster on Mrs. M’s back.

Everyone Mrs. M conversed with on the phone spoke Greek, so I surmised she had no command of English whatsoever.  A college friend of mine visited and it was during that week I realized that Mrs. M. understood and could speak English better than I could speak Greek. The  minute my friend left, however, she spoke not a word of Engllish to me again. My Greek improved dramatically out of sheer necessity. Even having spent a year at an American college in Greece (where I defaulted to English whenever I could), did not result in as much fluency.

On a Saturday afternoon, I heard a conversation taking place from behind the toilet room door in the long hallway. Mrs. M’s row house had about 10 inches of clearance from the house next door, whose mirror-image toilet room window faced her own. She was speaking in English in a very thick accent with the old lady next door, who had an obviously heavy Russian accent. “Halloh! How are yoo?” – to which the Russian lady answered, “How ees yore femly?” It was too precious. Two immigrant ladies occupying their respective thrones exchanging pleasantries.

Within eight months, I had saved enough money for a deposit on a little apartment. Mrs. M was beside herself that I could not keep her company any longer. I had moved on to a more interesting job and had set my sights on getting on with an airline at SFO. I said my goodbyes and told her I would not be living far away and would keep in touch.

But I didn’t.

If it’s true that youth is wasted on the young, then never moreso than on me. Despite my best intentions, I was on a mission to go places and see things while some meaningful ties became abandoned, demonstrating my youthful insensitivity. A few years later, after I had begun boarding people onto planes at SFO, I phoned to inquire about Mrs. M. and found she had passed away.

I wonder if she knew how often I reminisced about my short time with her. The stock of immigrant women from whence she came would never exist again. I knew it in my heart of hearts.

I also knew that my new frontiers had become like to her too-long drapery —  meaningful success only to the person earning it.

On the build . . .

Within the next month or so,  my writing career will be all about business. My business, that is.  Although my specialty for most of the past twelve years has been writing about real estate and homebuilding, I also now write on women’s issues as Examiner.com’s LadyBoomer Examiner and run a writing business that includes helping people and companies with their corporate newsletters, white papers, professional (print and online) profiles, ghostwriting, web content, book and article editing and all manner or PodCast and Web cast scripting.

To make my web site name reflect the more comprehensive writing venues just listed, I have decided on Ultimate Communic8or (communic8or.com) for my new web site name and brand and logo, which are being being determined by various and sundry experts as I write this.  So stay tuned for all the new “stuff” that goes with having a professional web site designer, graphic artist, business manager and career consultant help grow a career that has too long been left to chance.  In the weeks and months to come, I hope to emerge from my cocoon to do what I was born to do in more abundance — write like a madwoman!

In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to contact me at examinerdena@gmail.com regarding personal or corporate projects, as none are too small or too big for my consideration. I am also available as a speaker for your events, having functioned as a trainer and speaker in the real estate industry for five years.  As soon as my new web site is up and functioning, a fresh link will be added to my Examiner.com pages and we’ll be good to go!

A new (and historic) experience I will not soon forget

This morning, I played reporter.  Normally, as a topical journalist, I gather information on things, make them into something readable and send them along to post without much fanfare.  But this morning, at the behest of both HuffingtonPost.com and Examiner.com, I attended an inaugural event to give readers a play-by-play of what I witnessed first-hand.

A group of people gather at a  Sacramento neighborhood gallery to watch the 44th President of the United States and first African American Commander-in-Chief sworn into office. Founded in 2004, the gallery, dubbed “40 Acres”  (as in the historical promise of “40 acres and a mule” for freed slaves) is situated in a ethnically diverse neighborhood nestled within the state capital.  The walls of the gallery are teeming with outstanding examples of African- American and minority art as part of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s St. Hope Foundation.

Making it there by 8 am, I was grateful for coffee and pastries after battling rush-hour traffic. But soon after I downed my morning brew, I realized I was in no ordinary place. I was in the midst of history being made.  As I listened to heartfelt “amens”,  “uh-huhs” and “right-ons,”  during the pre-oath moments, I began to tap away on my laptop, recounting as quickly as I could when applause erupted as speeches and musical presentations ensued.  And when President Barack Obama gave his inaugural speech, I could tell I was in the midst of something special indeed.

Years from now, I hope I may be able to tell my grandchildren where I was on this day: not just witnessing the day’s historic events, but reporting on one small but interesting event for all to read and learn about, even if  merely a local gathering.  For in the eyes, the faces and the comments I was privy to this morning, I could see —  that in some way that I could not quite put my finger on — the world had indeed changed right before my eyes.

Another privately held homebuilder bites the dust . . .

Like many before them in this financial debacle, another well-known homebuilder announced recently that it will literally be closing its doors.

As reported by the homebuilding trades’ BUILDER Magazine’s Alison Rice, Kimball Hill Homes, founded in 1969, has become the latest casualty of the housing and credit crisis. Once the firm finishes building the homes it currently has under construction, it will have become a statistic and comment on life in our times.

Kiimball Hill’s CEO Ken Love is quoted as saying that he deeply regrets the decision, but given the current housing and financial market conditions, the homebuilder is simply unable to conduct normal operations while it continues with sales efforts.

Kimball Hill was one of the elite BUILDER 100, closing 3,246 homes as recently as 2007, but proceeded with filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year.  In addition to its financial difficulties, Kimball Hill also lost it founder David K Hill to cancer in July. It was David who had named the company after his father, Kimball Hill.