It's been a blast, but this blog will be discontinued as of Monday 10/19/20. Please follow me @ https://www.manopause.com/ where you will find more articles by me and many other fine writers. Here's my most recent one called, "Old" Is Not A Four Letter Word: https://www.manopause.com/life/old-shouldnt-be-a-dirty-word-13904/ Thanks for subscribing ..read more

This will be my final post on this blog. Which is a good thing, because I have moved onto to bigger and better things. More about that later. For the 3 years I have been blogging I have mostly remained non-political in an attempt not to alienate or aggravate any of my readers. (People are so touchy about their politics these days.) But since this is my last post, I wanted to get some things off my chest that will certainly be unpopular with many but will hopefully be thought-provoking for some. Politics is very complicated and I don’t pretend to fully comprehend most issues. We all know only w ..read more

I have an annoying habit. (Actually, I have a bunch of them but let’s just focus on this one for now.) I find myself reflexively correcting people whenever they use the wrong words or phrases. I make the erroneous assumption that they would want to know. However, more often than not, people don’t want to be corrected. Especially by some know-it-all like me who doesn’t know all that much. So I have learned to restrain myself and allow others the bliss of their ignorance. That being said, there are some glaring, commonly misused words and phrases that I would like to correct here and now and onc ..read more

I used to love going to the movies. For me, there was nothing like seeing a motion picture on the big screen. I have magical memories of my parents taking me when I was a child (I remember when I wanted Mary Poppins to be my mother!), naughty memories of making out with Judy Kaplan in the balcony when I was a teenager (I remember when theaters had balconies!!) and wild memories of getting thrown out for smoking pot as a young adult (I remember when they had smoking sections!!!). These days, I hardly ever go out to see movies anymore. It’s too much trouble, it’s too expensive and there’s too mu ..read more

There are a lot of things that my generation grew up with that were always there and seemed like they always would be. Until they weren’t. Some of them were simple things that seem funny now when viewed through the lens of time. While progress has rendered them obsolete or ignorant and replaced them with improved technology or enlightened awareness, I still sometimes find myself wistfully lamenting their loss. So let’s take a stroll down memory lane and remember a few of my favorite things that have gone the way of the dodo bird. (Along with expressions like “gone the way of the dodo bird.”) P ..read more

Remember when smoking cigarettes was not only common and socially accepted but was actually considered cool? Even people who knew better and didn’t smoke thought it was cool. Everybody did it everywhere. Now hardly anybody’s allowed to do it anywhere. If you smoke cigarettes, you are shunned, treated like a pariah and probably smell like a dirty ashtray to everyone around you. Full disclosure: I used to smoke a pack a day. In my defense, I grew up watching old movies with stars like James Dean and Humphrey Bogart, who not only smoked but looked really cool doing it. I recently watched an old r ..read more

I’m glad I’m a Jew. Not because I’m deeply religious or because I come from a proud people with a rich heritage, but because I think Jews are funny. (Sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.) Also because I think Jews are cool. Our philosophy can basically be boiled down to the motto, “live and let live”. We don’t impose our religious beliefs on others (not like some religions I could mention). Although, we do enjoy expressing our opinions often and loudly. When I was growing up, practically all the funniest people were Jewish; filmmakers like Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Neil Simon and comedia ..read more

Kids today have no idea what the world was like when us baby boomers grew up. As we used to say, “You had to be there.” They couldn’t imagine a world without the internet, cell phones, video games, microwave ovens and the Kardashians. So let me remind you about some of the childhood memories we all share and tell you about some of my personal stories that will make you say, “Oh, so that’s why he’s so screwed up.” When I was a kid we didn’t have a lot of scheduled activities. There were no playdates, no Xboxes and the only classes I took outside of school were to help me do better in school. In ..read more

Baby Boomers were the first generation to grow-up with television. (Which is probably one of the reasons we’re so screwed up.) But TV then was nothing like TV now. So much has changed since those days. We didn’t have nearly as much to watch but, as a result, we were watching it together. A television show could capture the hearts and minds of the entire nation and unite us in cultural conversations.They called them “water cooler shows” because that’s where everyone supposedly gathered to talk about them at work. Which is stupid because I don’t think I ever talked to anyone around a water coole ..read more

If you know anything about my blog then you know that I am not referring to the Medieval Period between the 5th and 15th centuries, but rather that part of modern life between young adulthood and old age (which can sometimes feel like it’s centuries long). In the 1960’s, it was us baby boomers who made getting older unpopular with the youth driven cultural revolution and with sayings like “Don’t trust anyone over 30." But when we started getting older we conveniently changed our minds and came up with the contradictory slogan “40 is the new 30." Aging is like being the victim of a violent cri ..read more