1996 was a sentinel year. During that year the first wave of the “Victory Babies” of World War II celebrated their 50th birthdays. More recently, in 2006, the first wave of Baby Boomers, as we came to be known, turned 60.

We represent the post World War II population swell. Babies born to GIs and their significant others upon the end of the last great world wide conflagration, through the Kennedy years, are estimated to number about 77 million strong in the U.S. alone.

But if you don’t belong to this cohort, you may still be either a parent or child of one of us. Or you may be a brother or sister to a “Boomer”. You see, we are ubiquitous. You must, therefore, be either a Boomer in person, or be married to one, be the parent of one, be the sibling of one, or the offspring of one. Thus, please read on. My hope is that this little tome will be of some help to you as you seek to discover what makes us “tick”.

Boomers are truly unique in many ways. And as we enter middle age or graduate to senior citizen status, we have lived a pretty long time, enduring some of the most trying and hopeful times in modern history.

We were raised in large part by the “Greatest Generation” as Tom Brokaw described our parents or grandparents who came of age during the Great Depression and who saved the world by winning the Second World War. Spawned by the Greatest Generation, Boomers have produced some fantastic art, science, literature and philosophy, and have thus contributed to American culture and history. But for the most part, we live relatively quiet lives, with little chance or need for fame or notoriety.

Most Boomers have by now, “bought” and settled into the American Dream, mostly in the metropolitan suburbs we helped create and populate. We have matured to pursue careers, own property, pay our taxes, complain about government, and are loyal red blooded Americans, participating in church and community, and usually voting when called upon.

We are stakeholders too. Many millions of us are military veterans and are small-scale capitalists, owning commercial enterprises, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Many have amassed significant wealth, much of it transferred from our parents as they have passed on a monetary or property inheritance.

While few are “rich” in money assets, most are comfortable and middle-class. We are thus a cross-section of America at her best and worst, and a big section at that. In fact, like it or not, Boomers are now for the most part, in charge of America. Right now, people over 55 own 77% of all financial assets in the United States. And adults over 50 account for 45% of U.S. consumer spending, a whopping $2.1 trillion per year.

We are firmly in charge. Forty-one percent of American adults are now over 50, the highest percentage in U.S. history. Just look at the people who populate Congress, where the average age is 60. In fact, 80% are over 50. And yes those who recently sought and won the Presidency, starting with Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama are all Boomers. Fully half of all Americans who voted in 2006 were over 50.

The Greatest Generation has passed into retirement, and many by now have passed away, leaving us in charge. By 2011, Americans over 50 will surpass 100 million people. And, we have been reshaping America since we first began appearing in large numbers:

- The Baby Boom was launched in 1946 by an onslaught of “Victory Babies” parented by GIs returning from World War II;
- The babies kept on coming all the way through 1964, an era marked by the birth of the American Middle Class, and framed by the Cold War;
- By 1950, suburban development was well underway to provide the new homes and shopping malls, parks and schools, needed to contain millions of new families and fuel their consumer demands, born of unprecedented prosperity;
- In 1951 the first Boomers entered school, resulting in a building boom in expanding public education facilities nationwide;
- Boomer families were the first generation to enjoy enough prosperity to make middle-class vacations possible, and Walt Disney built his California Disneyland which opened in 1955, as a dream vacation destination for millions of Boomer families;
- Baby Boomer births soured to 4.3 million in 1957, the peak year;
- By 1960, the first Boomers were entering puberty, and, aided by the introduction of effective chemical birth control, the Sexual Revolution was born;
- 1964, the last year of the Baby Boom, witnessed 4 million births;
- The American Viet Nam War, 1964-1973, was led by elders but fought mostly by Boomer GIs, while other Boomers protested vigorously. By the end of US involvement, 58,000 were dead, and 158,000 wounded;
- In 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” address from the steps of the Lincoln Monument in Washington DC. Millions of Boomers, Black and White, have since struggled to bring about racial harmony.
- Barack Obama won the nomination of the Democratic Party, seeking to become the next Boomer to occupy the White House, and the first man of African heritage to do so.
- The Woodstock (New York) Music Festival drew 460,000 Boomer youth in the summer of 1969;
- In 1975, Boomer Bill Gates, born in 1955, quietly formed Microsoft;
- In 1981, the world was introduced to AIDS;
- The Vietnam War Memorial opened in Washington, DC, in 1982.
- Boomer Michael Jordon, born in 1963, joined the NBA in 1984;
- In 1991, Clarence Thomas, born in 1948, became a Supreme Court Justice;
- Bill Clinton, born in 1948, is the first person born after World War II to be elected President in 1992;

The past sixty years has witnessed profound changes in American life and culture, much of it attributable to the influence of the Boomer generation.