One late summer day in 1987 my father summoned Bob and me. They were living in the log house on three acres which then sat centrally along our road frontage.
That morning my parents gave us the ownership of their house and land and $25,000, which was everything they had. My dad was 86 and my mother was 75. They had Blue Cross/Blue Shield health insurance and a supplement through TIAA-CREF from my father’s working days at R.I.T.
My father died three years later, and my mother continued to live comfortably in the log house until her death there in 1997. They never needed the $25,000. That was what was possible for the parents of us Baby-Boomers.
They missed the great ice storm of 1998, they missed 9/11, they missed the hateful politics that we are living through, they missed this pandemic. I wonder what our children will have to endure.
Wizened Wizard 