enlarge Courtesy Rick Ackermann

Rick Ackermann says he has no problems with his knees, as many boomer runners do, because he did no running until he was 50, preferring stationary bicycles.

enlarge Photo courtesy The Grassholes

Gail Landry prefers to stay in the background when she plays stand-up bass for The Grassholes. She played piano as a youngster, but learned bass so she could join the group.

enlarge Photo coutesy Kate Nordstrom

Kate Nordstrom and Aaron Weissblum of Alna love growing all their own vegetables and preserving them to last the year.

enlarge Press Herald file/2001

Contradances draw good crowds of fun-loving people, and Cathy Given drives from Edgecomb to Portland to enjoy them. Beginners are welcome at most of the events.

The worse things seem and the darker the massing clouds on the horizon, the more it makes sense to do something soul-satisfying and fun. That's especially true for baby boomers, the generation known for having a good time.

Stand-up bass player Gail Landry, dancer Cathy Given, locavores Kate Nordstrom and Aaron Weissblum, and triathalon runner Rick Ackerman have turned the pursuit of fun into a recipe for happy lives – and they all got started within the past 10 years.

THE WAY OF THE STAND-UP BASS

Follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell advises.

Real estate broker Gail Landry, 55, a principal owner of Town and Shore Associates in Portland, always loved to play the piano.

Nobody made her practice, she said, even when she first started learning at 6. But even so, she said, the real fun started in 2003.

"My brother-in-law plays the banjo with one of his best friends, who plays guitar. They came to me one day and asked me if I would like to learn an instrument that I could play with them. I thought the bass would be the easiest instrument to pick up," she said. She is shy about performing solos, and likes being away from the front of the stage – when she plays nowadays in their band, The Grassholes.

Picking up the instrument changed her life. "It turns out that I am now married to the guitar player, Merrill Marsh."

The pleasure of playing music, perhaps "Raise a Ruckus," by her band's lead guitarist, Sam Pfeiffle, can take Landry's mind off a stock market that loses almost 800 points in one day. "Everyday concerns, work issues, they all sort of fall away."

More important, music brings her into a new world, the bountiful place inhabited by musicians. "It transcends all barriers – it goes across all classes. I have played with incredible fiddle players who have no teeth and probably didn't finish high school."

She has played at the Roost in Buxton, amid 50 music players on a Sunday afternoon, and at her own annual "bluegrass extravaganza" that she used to host every October, with 125 or more people who get together and play. "There is nothing like the power of music to bring people together."

Busking on Wharf Street across from Beal's Ice Cream in Portland's Old Port has proved the most fun of all – even if they did rake in by far the most money the time her adorable black pug Ollie came along and stole the show.

IN THE MOOD

This newspaper's calendar lists contradances and swing dances that begin with dance lessons almost every week, all open to anyone who likes to dance. Cathy Given, 58, jumped into her first swing class four years ago, and is just perfecting her tandem Charleston move. Stepping and turning simultaneously with a partner is a kick, but even the simplest steps can make a dancer smile.

"People are out there to have fun," Given said. "It's hot in the halls, and a lot of times they aren't air-conditioned. But it's just so much fun I don't think about it."

Given teaches family and consumer science, or home economics, to students in School Union 44's Oak Hill High School in Wales, commuting 38 miles from her home in Edgecomb. It's another drive to the contradances and swing dances she loves in Portland, Falmouth, or North Whitefield, to name a few. But the great exercise and the pleasure of seeing friends make the trips worthwhile.

Contradances in particular are filled with families and babies, with all ages enjoying the exercise and the music. Sometimes Given encounters former students at contradances. "People are not drinking – it's a healthy group of people."

At the North Deering Grange swing dances in Portland, held the first and third Friday of every month, Given enjoys swing dancing with Campbell Searles, a fine dancer in his 80s. Like Searles, Given said, "I just plan to keep dancing." She will continue to take classes to pick up new steps,...