Columnist Susan Snyder: Boomers address mid-life

Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2001 | 9:02 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Remember Pong?

"Jonathan Livingston Seagull?"

The 8-track tape?

Ducking under your classroom desk for bomb drills?

If so, you are a "Zoomer," according to a survey conducted by Del Webb, the company synonymous with retirement of the rich and aimless.

"Studies" released by giant, money-grubbing, land-scarfing corporations typically go straight into the office recycling bin.

But this one was kind of fun if only for the fact that Del Webb had the grapes (from only the finest vines, you understand) to change the most-recognized name for an entire population -- Baby Boomers -- into something that fits their latest marketing scheme.

Enter "Zoomers."

For the recently emigrated, people who don't bother with sweeping demographic generalizations or people too young to remember fondue pots, Baby Boomers were born from 1946 to 1964.

In this survey Del Webbers interviewed the oldest members, who turn 55 this year, and the youngest members, who are or will be 37.

Although the age gap seems very wide -- the oldest Boomers could conceivably be parents of the youngest ones -- the survey says these people still agree on some things.

For instance, most are hoping for a simple retirement free from debt and dependents (yappy Pomeranians and teacup poodles excluded, of course).

They gain religious and spiritual devotion as they age. (In other words, the closer they get to actually facing heaven, the more diligently they try to get in.)

They're not interested in cosmetic surgery. (Riiiight. And the Las Vegas phone book has 15 pages of plastic surgeons for Siegfried and Roy alone.)

According to the Purveyors of Golf and Green Space survey, these two groups also rank the Vietnam War as the one event they would most like to change.

As a member of the group born somewhere between the oldest and youngest Boomers, I would rank 1970s fashion as the event I would most like to change. But no one cares what I think.

The number of 37-year-olds who said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination was the one event they would most like to reverse outnumbered 55-year-olds who felt the same way 3 to 1.

And the youngest Boomers who hope to live more extravagantly in retirement than they currently live outnumbered 55-year-olds who feel that way 2 to 1.

Sandwiched among the charts and fact lists provided by the Corporation for Self-Involved Retirement is a promise that "Del Webb will never build another shuffleboard court," and a statement that shows the company is, however, willing to plop down 7,600 homes a year.

Most of these will be in the company's trademark "active adult" communities, which cater to the oldest Boomers. These people, the survey says, figure their lives are only half over at 55. Hence they are "Zoomers."

Many, the study says, may even opt for second careers instead of retirement.

And here I was wondering how buying into Del Webb and retiring at 55 was going to fit with that desire to remain debt free.