Many Boomers in second childhoods

Fat is beautiful.
Baby Boomers, remember your first day of school and those fat Coca-Cola pencils and eight-count pack of fat crayons we got?
Remember also how teachers made us take a nap after lunch?
Believing what goes around comes around, many first-tier Boomers are in our second childhoods.
If you haven’t already switched to inexpensive fat pens with soft grips, what is wrong with you?
It takes less than 30 seconds of steady writing to become acclimated to those babies that reduce finger and wrist strain, problems age must produce.
As for naps, ongoing research has shown brief noontime siestas are as beneficial as a full night’s sleep.
Now, we’re getting to the crux of today’s matter — placing blame.
Being around parents with young children, such as beautiful granddaughter Laci, 1, “nappy” time is generally “happy” time for exhausted mommies.
So why is it, those same “mommies” turn on their hubbies when the menfolk nod off briefly after a scrumptious, home-cooked, um hmm, tray of lasagna the little lady has prepared to look exactly like the Stouffer’s product sold in supermarkets, tantalizingly served with the contents of a sack of salad, all washed down with glasses of Lipton’s bottled green tea, w/lemon pre-added.
Adding two large slices of Edwards’ Turtle Pie to the above will knock out more men than Joe Louis ever did.
Tracing matters back another way, it was parents who first made us eat everything on our plates because, “there are children in China starving to death and you’re not going to waste food in this house, little lady!“
Then someone invented the “Clean-Plate Club” at school and when teamed with food ads on TV and parental directives, it’s a thousand wonders “The Biggest Loser” doesn’t preempt all other programming.
We had a classmate who was somewhat overweight growing up, but as an adult quickly shed excess pounds after a major health scare.
While some of us, ahem, weigh 100 pounds more than we did May 27, 1968, when we graduated from Enterprise High School, he weighs at least 100 pound less, and he never had the opportunity to win cash and valuable merchandise on any TV program.
And another thing, grandson Lane, 11, and Laci’s mom — or any mom — absolutely insisted on burping their children after early liquid meals and later after regular doses of solid food.
Now, though, let any child burp or belch, especially in a restaurant, and see what happens. Better yet, let a poor bedraggled hubby get off a deep guttural blast.
Also, remember how parents used to tell us not to sit too close to the TV or read in poor light because it’d ruin our eyes?
Right there was the genesis of “couch potatoes.“
Truly, age is the reason most Baby Boomers can barely read even in the best available lighting, without some sort of eyeglasses nowadays; for most, reading glasses with magnifying lenses are sufficient.
Sometimes, hand-held magnifying glasses like we once used to set fire to notebook paper in school, are required.
But the strongest magnifiers won’t help those creatures of habit who chat on cell phones waiting for a traffic light to change at the courthouse intersection of East College and Edwards streets in lovely downtown Enterprise