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New Seniors (pre-boomers and the early baby boomers) are the ones who benefited most from the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation.  It may seem strange to those younger than we are to consider being born during the Great Depression or WWII to be a good thing.  But it was.  We saw first hand, or soon came to understand, what incredible strength, faith and courage our parents and the others of their era had.  They were patriots.

They, their parents or earlier ancestors, came to this country with a dream: the hope of building a new and better life.  One were they could be free.  And, one where their children would have endless opportunities to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  These people left behind whatever they had and whomever they knew to come to America.  They understood it would not be easy but believed it would be worth it.

Few arrived here with money or the possibility of work.  They lucky ones had friends or relatives provide them with food and shelter.  When jobs were found, the hours were long and the tasks difficult.  Yet these new Americans were determined to make it and while doing so they made this country a better place for all of us.  This makes them patriots.

It’s almost impossible for us to think of what they went through.  Although stories passed down let us know it was no cake walk.  What our patriot parents went through was a long arduous journey through the ‘30s and directly into fighting a War on two fronts in the early ‘40s.  Many of us remember those war days, when people lived in both fear and faith for nearly five years.  And we all benefited from their efforts as the country moved from 15 long years of darkness into the sunshine of post-war prosperity.

Those who carried the message of family tradition and the responsibility that goes with the freedoms enjoyed in this great country of ours are leaving us at an ever increasing rate.  The pre-boomers are approaching old age as the boomers join us as New Seniors.  In the meantime, we have work to do in order to help get the US back on track.

This Independence Day, let us commit ourselves to using what we learned and what we believe to reignite the feeling of patriotism within in our families, our friends and our communities.  The true greatness of America began with the individual and became  bigger, stronger and more beautiful as people worked together to make this the land of the free and the home of the brave.  This may be the moment in history when we can do our part to let the American dream live on for our children and grand children.  There is no better birthday gift we could give to the country that gave so much to us.

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The forerunner to the company was established in the 1880s when the firm’s founder invented a machine that helped the US Census Bureau complete the tabulating task in two rather than ten years and saved the government millions.  In 1911, this firm combined with three others to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR).

In 1914, Thomas J. Watson joined the company as general manager and became president a year later.  He was innovative and believed in team work as well the motivation and retention of good employees.  Soon after he arrived, the first disabled employee was hired.  He started training programs.  And it was Watson who coined the famous company slogan: “Think.”   Ten years after his arrival, the company changed its name in order to more accurately reflect the company’s mission and goals to International Business Machines (IBM).

Even during the Great Depression, IBM continued to hire people and was among the first companies to provide group life insurance, survivor benefits and paid vacations.  All the while, Watson saw to it that the firm reinvested in its future through research and development activities.  He strongly believed in “world peace through world trade” and had that statement inscribed on the headquarters building in New York.  But, when WWII broke out, he offered his company’s facilities for the production of military ordnances.  It was during the war that the first woman became an IBM vice president.  Immediately after the war ended, the company hired its first black salesman.

As the post war recovery took place, the company was faced with making the transition from mechanical counter devices and systems to the electronic age.  This effort was interrupted with Watson’s death at age 82.  His son, Tom Watson, JR., took over and completely reorganized the company while keeping his father’s philosophies and policies in place.  After his retirement in 1971, IBM continued to flourish.

The shift to PCs and an influx of new technology in the early 1990s had a devastating effect on IBM.  It had to shed old products and seek new areas of opportunities. The firm lost nearly half its workforce, but continued to practices the proven principles for success.  

Today, less than two decades later, IBM is back up to about the same number of employees and revenues have increased to well above previous levels.  This demonstrates that a commitment to excellence at all levels within a company can payoff for everyone involved, in spite of setbacks.  Other companies could learn from IBM’s performance.  And, the government might learn a thing or two as well, if it were so inclined.    

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These men and women, many not even out of high school and having just gone through a decade-long depression, put the safety of their family, friends and community ahead of themselves.  They came from rich and poor families, educated and nearly illiterate ones, some were famers others city dwellers.  The make up was as diverse as America itself. 

Everyone was part of the war effort.  Besides those fighting the war, defense work was a priority at home.  Rationing of food, gas and luxuries was commonplace.  Even the children were involved with paper and scrape metal drives plus selling War Bonds in conjunction with the schools.  Virtually all families had someone in the armed services and every community suffered when one of theirs was lost in the war. 

World War II was fought by every American in some way.  That’s why New Seniors and those older remember it so vividly to this day, nearly 70 years later.  Sadly, the people who lead us to victory are leaving us at an increasing rate.  The Greatest Generation is big in its accomplishments, but their ranks are becoming smaller.  We already miss their wisdom, and the courage they displayed is remembered in stories rather than in news reports as it once was.

Before it’s too late, we should talk to these true American heroes and find out why they did the unselfish things they did without asking for praise or reward.  This is something New Seniors are well equipped to do.  In fact, it is our responsibility to honor these patriots and get the word out to the rest of the population, starting with the aging Baby Boomer who benefited so much from what these folks did.  Tell them to get over Viet Nam, when the only thing many of them did was to complain rather than serve.  If they can’t do that, the future of America looks bleak, indeed.

Then, pass the word on to the Gen X and Y groups who never had to sacrifice anything until recently when jobs became scarce, cars and homes were reposed and their credit cards got maxed out.  This are the generations that have not paid their dues but seem unwilling to pay more for services they intend to use in the future.  They don’t realize that unless we all help finance Social Security and Health Care there won’t be any programs to aid them.

And, last but not least, what about the politicians?  They are not being asked to sacrifice their personal money.  We just want them to have the courage to make the right decisions, without regard to party lines.  Government programs must be fixed so people can start earning money in order to pay for the changes that will ensure funds are ready when needed and the United States can collectively have the courage and wherewithal to remain the land of the free and the home of the brave.        

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Growing up in Philadelphia, I was exposed to the thoughts of one of the great early American’s, Ben Franklin.  His common sense philosophy about how to live one’s life was published in Poor Richard’s Almanac, and all the city’s school kids had to memorize the important sayings.  Things like “a penny saved is a penny earned” and “early to be, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” and “time is money” are but a few of the adages we recited.

Few take exception to the words of Franklin; yet, through the years these maxims have lost their importance.  Maybe it’s time to give the proverbs a second look and incorporate these simple truths into our daily lives.  While we’re at it, the words of the other Founding Fathers may lead us back to understanding the fundamentals on which this country was built.  A good place to start is with the documents many of them contributed to: The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States.

Reading these sacred documents won’t require much time and the process may remind us of what freedom means and why it must be embraced and maintained at all costs.  Those who framed these documents also offered their personal thoughts reminding us to be ever vigilant lest our freedoms be eroded, and they provided words of wisdom by which we might pursue and better enjoy individual liberties.  It’s easy, just go online and you’ll find many quotes from Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and the other great patriots.

This leads us back to the issue of money.  Since the prosperity years following the end of WWII, our generation never looked back.  Sure, there were bumps in the road, but we had confidence in the future and lived that way.  Many of us did not save for that rainy day or the retirement years ahead, at least not to the extent we should have.  Fortunately, there were things like company pensions and IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts) to supplement grossly insufficient Social Security benefits.  So we’ll get by.

The sad news is our country didn’t plan for the future either.  The nation is in deep debt, yet government doesn’t seem to be able or want to turn off the spending machine it created.  The politicians point to the people who will suffer if federal programs are cut back.  They seem to forget, it is our tax dollars that pay for all the social and entitlement programs.  And, borrowing or printing more money will saddle generations to come. 

Something has to be done.  All of us must accept some of the blame.  This means everyone gets less and suffers some.  Remember what Ben Franklin said, “when the people find they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”

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War babies may not remember living during those turbulent years, but they all heard, read and saw stories about these times.  Toy soldiers, military vehicles and other replicas of war were still in vogue for boys of that era.  Post war production had not yet come up with a crop of new merchandise.  These kids lived with hand-me-downs such as bicycles that were painted to make them feel new.  But, soon, production caught up to demand.

This group of kids did not have television in their living rooms until they were in elementary school.  In fact, many of them moved into their first homes during the building boom that followed the war.  The same is true of the family car, if the family was lucky enough to have one.  Most cars were from the ‘30s, because the last passenger vehicles were made during calendar year 1941 and production of cars did not resume until the war was won on both fronts.

The party line telephone was the rule rather than the exception when these kids were growing up.  Horse-drawn wagons delivered milk and bakery items in many areas.  Corner grocery stores flourished in cities before supermarkets came on the scene.  Overall, America remained much the way it was for several years after the peace.

Suddenly, in the late 1940s, the nation changed.  It seemed as if it was virtually overnight, but it was a longtime coming.  The terrible ‘30s, with the Great Depression hanging over everyone, coupled with the frightening first half of the ‘40s, were the country was involved in a devastating World War, resulted in a nation that was ready to consume almost anything – particularly if it was new.

This is were the baby boomers came in.  None of them experienced the difficulties facing all Americans until the war ended.  This generation lived in new homes, rode around in new cars and most certainly had a TV set in their living room.  And the TV spewed out commercials that encouraged kids to ask their parents to buy the advertised products.  And why not, a major benefit of the peace was a spending boom.  

So the cutting-edge boomers, born from 1946 through 1950, grew up as consumers with high expectations.  However, their older brothers and sisters grew up in a time of frugality and uncertainty and carried what they learned throughout their respective lives

Today, the pre-boomers are all 65+ and the boomers are just starting to turn 65.  The question is will the latter group be able to adapt to living without over-spending as they head into their retirement years?  They might take a few tips from the folks who have already be there.  

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Because each of us can make a difference in our homes, at work and in our communities, there are no reasons and certainly no excuses for not being part of the solution.  Too often, we see problems and decide to ignore them or simply to complain about the lack of action on the part of others.  This is a low-level way of contributing to the ultimate expansion of the problem.

A quote attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt says, “ Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery.  Today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.”  These words are those to live by for everyone, especially New Seniors.  We should not rest on past accomplishments or the way things were.  And we don’t know what the future brings.  So there’s no reason to worry about what might happen provided we take care of what’s in front of us right now.

Are New Seniors bringing the experience we amassed over the years to effect positive change?  Other generations, including our grandchildren and their peers, need to hear about history as we lived it not what others wish it were.  The tales of the Great Depression.  The courage of people who fought WWII and the support they received from the people on the home front.  The boom years that followed.  The advent of television, consumerism, Rock and Roll.  The civil rights movement, women’s rights, the Vietnam War.  All these were experienced by those 65+ and must be passed along.

And, along the way, we lived through the Cold War, nuclear proliferation, creation of Medicare, opening of trade with Asia, a few more wars and a couple of financial crisis plus the Internet and the tech bubble.  This all occurred before the millennium.   In the past decade terrorists attacked the homeland and we got into a couple of more wars.  Then the rug was pulled out from under us with our institutions letting us down as the nation plunged into a deep recession and the current aftermath.  This gives New Seniors a long-term perspective and plenty to share with others.

Using this experience as a foundation to explore today’s problems can help generate common sense solutions that could go a long way in fixing many situations.  Some of these won’t be resolved in our lifetimes.  However, New Seniors have a responsibility to provide real insight to America’s woes. 

We were leaders and workers in the past and have lived the American Dream.  Let us unite with trailing generations by offering our experience and the lessons learned to help get the nation back on track.  If we do this today, tomorrow will take care of itself.  What a gift this would be to the country we love.

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Often known as the forgotten generation rather than as pre-boomers, the 30 million people making up this group were born during the Great Depression or WWII.  As a result, we learned about sacrifice, the importance of unity and that the American dream was within our grasp.

We were fortunate to be instilled with the values, traditions and beliefs of the greatest generation – things we carry with us to this day.  Yes, we lived our own lives.  Made contributions to the workplace and our communities.  And raised families using what was passed on to us as the foundation of our efforts.

Now, we are retired or plan to be soon.  But this is not the time for us to sit back and watch the world go by.  To the contrary, pre-boomers have plenty of gas left in our tanks. And there is much work to be done.  We have been given many opportunities and have a responsibility to give back to society what was so freely given to us.

Most of us can’t give money.  We are on fixed incomes and won’t be able to make back the dollars at this stage of our lives.  But we can offer what we learned, from others and through life’s individual experiences, to those generations trailing us.  This included those following directly on our heels on down to the generations of our grandchildren and great grandchildren, which is part of our family responsibilities.

With the baby boomers starting to turn 65 in 2011, we can help them make the transition to New Seniors status.  For the next two decades, someone in America will be reaching 65 every ten seconds.  By 2030 all 76 million of the boomers will have reached their 65^th birthday and represent nearly a fifth of the population, the largest single segment. 

So it doesn’t matter if pre-boomers missed out on all the media coverage over the years or that we did not receive the credit we deserve for our contributions to this country.  While others were running wild in the streets protesting against the government and tearing down what took nearly 200 years to establish, pre-boomers were displaying that we were rock-solid citizens.  This is history.

Beginning in 2011, instead of being pre-boomers and boomers, we’ll unite in the cross-generational accomplishment of all being New Seniors.  This means more people than ever before will be enjoying the next third of the lives.  New Seniors are the ones who know why America was great and believe it can be again.  So let’s work together to make this country and the lives of its people better in every way.       

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America has been at the forefront of ingenuity before becoming a nation.  Some of our Founding Fathers were responsible for a number of products and services.  For instance, Benjamin Franklin was a scientist, an inventor and the man behind the post office.   Following these early Americans a host of  innovations from the steam engine, to the cotton gin and wheat reaper, to the auto assembly line to the light bulb and telephone all the way to the Internet and many products supporting it.  All were born in the USA.

These products and services changed our lifestyles forever and the improvements that came on top of them changed things even more.  Some were created because a need was recognized.  Others resulted from a dream.  And some were accidental.  Demand was generated through marketing and advertising.  As communications became more sophisticated so did the strategies and tactic used to sell the public.  It all worked together in ways that created jobs, made our lives more comfortable and convenient, which all led to this being the greatest consumer society in the world.

New Seniors remember when the consumer explosion hit soon after WWII, and we have been part of it until the present.  Two-thirds of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a result of consumer spending.  But consumers need to have confidence in order to spend.  Confidence in the government, the economy, ones personal situation and the future must all be in line or the spending slows down.  We reached this point a couple of years ago and the nation continues to struggle to get out of the doldrums.

It’s an interesting fact that more patents were granted and more products were created during the dark days of the Great Depression.  Many of these are still with us today.  Americans have not lost their creativity.  We have gotten a little fat and a bit lazy, expecting other people to do the heavy lifting, pursue their dreams and hand us a better life on a silver platter. 

We are feeling the pinch or have family and friends losing jobs, houses and hope.  This is the time to draw on our God given talents and what we’ve been taught from the Greatest Generation to tap into the wellspring of creativity and problem solving capabilities that is waiting within each of us.

Those of us 65+ are not too old to create, teach and inspire others to reach for the stars.  The moment of truth is now.  We must know after all these years the government can’t do it, and big business doesn’t have a hold on creativity.  Individuals made this country great, and will do it again; because necessity is the mother of invention. 

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We pre-boomers, those born between 1930 and 1945 and now referred to as New Seniors, still have plenty of dreaming left in us.  Yes, life has been good; and, thankfully, the pace of the adventure is not as hectic as it was a few years back.  Today, our responsibilities are more important in many ways than when we were working to provide for our families by tending to our careers.  Now our job is to use our years of experience to help and inspire family, friends and the community in an effort to make life better and more meaningful for others.

It doesn’t matter what you spent your life doing.  You learned how to do it well and that can be taught to another person.  Being a mentor to young people is one way.  Another way is to volunteer to help those older than you.  Or, with the boomers turning 65 next year, you can offer advice and show them how to transition into being a New Senior.  Each of these groups needs our help and we can provide it.

Through these simple acts of kindness, New Seniors can rekindle the cooling embers of the fire that once burned brightly – the American dream.  Learning and believing is the key to success.  And we can tell young people about what we saw in our youth and explain about the faith we had in the future.  Our parents instilled this in us during the darkest days of the Great Depression, WWII and the bright days of recover that followed.  America offered opportunities and we trusted the words of those who cared about us

The people who taught us, known as the Greatest Generation, are leaving this world at an ever increasing rate.  Sadly, those who gave us so much are often ignored.  Whether they are living at home or in a care facility, a visit from you would make their day.  If you don’t know any elderly folks, there are organizations that could use your services to brighten their days; and, thereby, thank them for what their generation gave you.

Maybe the trickiest ones to help are those boomers turning 65 and the millions trailing them.  Cutting-edge boomers don’t think of themselves as 65.  They don’t look it, act it or feel like it.  This may be true, but there is an underlying fear that goes with the aging process and the lack of power that accompanies this simple fact of life.  New Seniors can demonstrate how exciting the next third of life can be to those making the transition and enlist them to start by being of service.

The American dream is not dead it just needs to be healed.  And the best medicine is to care about others, to help them but not do what they should do for themselves.  Service is an act of love.  And the more we love each other the more we will love America.

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Most of those of born between 1930 and 1945, the pre-boomers, attended high school in the ‘50s.  It was a time of great anticipation and unbridled faith in the future.  As the nation recovered from the financial doldrums left over from the Great Depression and the collective fears associated with WWII, the manufacturing sector turned from a defense mode to making and selling consumer products.  There was a new look in cars once Detroit tooled up, television changed communications forever and people were buying new homes in the suburbs, especially those who qualified for the GI Bill.

These developments created jobs, at all levels, around the country for veterans as well as those who did not go off to war.  There was also the opportunity for vets to go to college and many took advantage of this.  At the same time, secondary schools were strong on preparing teens for college, if that was the path they chose.  Nonetheless, the nation’s schools, when local districts had the responsibility for education, realized that all high school students were not inclined to go to college.

We had Mechanical Arts classes, some in combination with the College Prep (Academic) curriculum, since engineering careers were big then.  But most of those enrolled in Mechanical Arts would go directly into the trades after high school.  Even then, we had common classes such as English, Civics and some Math courses among others.  Big schools also offered Home Economics and Retailing majors.  The idea was for the education system to prepare students to succeed once they graduated from high school no matter what career they wished to pursue.  That’s what education was about.

Those wanting more education needed good grades and high scores on the College Boards (that era’s equivalent to SATs) in order to get accepted by the better universities.  Most schools were affordable to average American families back then, and there were academic and sports scholarships too.  Then the notion surfaced that everyone deserved to go to college, fueled in part by the civil rights and women’s rights movements.  Unfortunately, concurrent to this, public education started to slide and has continued to fail our young people and the nation for decades.

Why are students allowed to go to college when they haven’t learned enough in high school?  Why don’t we grade teachers on how well their students learn and pay them accordingly?  Why is it we let those with student loans walk away from the responsibility of paying back what they borrowed?  And, why do voters continue to approve ballot measurers to support failing schools?  Maybe it’s time to rethink how the system works before we even think about being first in college graduates by 2020.