Welcome to my new monthly column about the trials and tribulations of being a Baby Boomer. You probably know me from my Parent's Eye View column, which ran in Shore Publishing weeklies for more than a decade.

Well, my kids have grown up, and although I hate to admit that I've grown older, too, I find myself smack dab in the middle of the Boomer generation, trying to figure out how I got here this fast, and attempting to cope with the incongruity of a mind and spirit that refuses to catch up with the increasing creaks and groans of an aging body.

Therefore, I hope to reestablish the wonderful dialogue I had with readers of my parenting column with a column about "My Generation"-the 1965 hit song by The Who.

So, who exactly are we, this generation born post-World War II, between 1946 and 1964?

Starting with some facts, Baby Boomers are different from other generations by our size alone. According to population statistics, 76 million American children were born in this 18-year period. As a result, we control more than 80 percent of personal financial assets and more than 50 percent of all consumer spending. Boomers purchase more than

75 percent of all prescription drugs and about 60 percent of over-the-counter drugs and we account for 80 percent of all leisure travel.

According to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control, the generation can be divided into two segments that each represent about half the demographic: Leading-Edge Baby Boomers (people born between 1946 and 1955), who came of age during the Vietnam War era, and Late Bloomers (people born between 1956 and 1964). I guess that makes me an Early Late Bloomer as I was born in '56.

Baby Boomers grew up in a time of huge political and social upheaval. We were deeply impacted by the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Vietnam War and anti-war protests; the first man on the moon; and the Watergate scandal. We were part of an era experimenting with sex and drugs and participating in the civil rights, environmental, and women's movements. We attended Woodstock-or our older siblings did-establishing rock 'n roll music as another expression of Boomer identity.

An interesting aside: I find that most of the rockin' bands playing along the shoreline and beyond are made up not of youth, but of Boomers; my husband included.

Ironically, we also qualify for senior citizen discounts and a subscription to AARP.

We're a generation that has witnessed extraordinary advances in technology in our lifetimes.

For those of us who were kids in the '60s, high-tech breakthroughs in personal communications constituted electric typewriters and a longer cord that allowed us to walk from one room to the next while talking on the phone.

For those of us in the communications business, we're old enough to remember physically pasting up newspaper pages with hot wax, and young enough to use computers for every aspect of creating the next issue. And instantly tweeting the news? We never even imagined such a thing would come to pass. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

We were the teenagers who experienced "the generation gap" and insisted that would never come between us and our children, flying to the other extreme with helicopter parenting, or on a more positive note, being much more tuned-in to our children's music, clothes, and hair length-so not the problems they were for our parents.

Although, I admit, I'm not as up to speed on my Millennial kids' slang as I thought I was. After emailing my son a picture of my new, shorter hairstyle and he responded, "dope cut," I wasn't sure if that was a good thing until I Googled it to find out it was in fact a compliment! (What did we do before Google?)

We're the quintessential sandwich generation. Many Boomers have waited until their 30s or even 40s to have children, while their parents are generally living much longer. As a result, the empty nest is emptying out later and/or being re-filled with elderly parents-both literally and in the complex caretaking roles that befall us. In a way, we're the club sandwich generation if we include ourselves and our own aging issues.

We're also the generation delaying retirement longer than any before us-both due to economic necessity and a desire to stay involved and connected.

And of course, we're as diverse-politically, religiously, economically, and socially-as we are the same.

I invite you to "join me" each month as I explore the people, the issues, the challenges, and inspirations of the Baby Boomer generation.

Amy J. Barry is a Baby Boomer who lives in Stony Creek with her husband and assorted pets. She writes arts features and reviews for Shore Publishing newspapers and is an expressive arts educational facilitator. Please email your responses and ideas for future columns-both people and topics- to aimwrite@snet.net or visit www.aimwrite-ct.net.