Speaking of the Osher Lifelong Learning event Monday, it was too successful. I just recieved an email from the director saying we’d gotten in trouble with the Auburn Chamber of Commerce, where the event was held. It seems only 85 people are supposed to be in our meeting room, and we had over 115, with some turning away because there were no more chairs. I guess I’ll go down to the fire department and turn myself in after I write this.

I don’t mention this to brag. Well, maybe a little. I mention it, because it made me think of my audience and others before it, and I’ve been following the discussion here. It is a fact that most of the people in my audiences are, well, about my age, or as Aunt Bea’s physician would have put it, “They’re not spring chickens anymore.” I attribute this partly to the fact newspaper readers in general these days tend to be much older on average than ever before. However, I also like to think A&J is emerging as the voice of the Boomer (There, I said it.) generation, because the characters age but do not act old. There are a lot of strips out there these days trying to attract the same audience—and I”m not naming any names—where the older characters are white-haired and irrelevant cranks, like some escapees from a Depression-era old folks’ home. I don’t think we see ourselves that way.