Artist Biography & Statement

March 2, 2008 - At Teaneck High School in the 1960s, Jeri Kadison couldn't work up the nerve to pursue a secret dream.

"There was always that hidden desire to be a cheerleader," she says. "I didn't have a lot of self-confidence. I was just too shy and didn't think I could do it." And 40 years later?

"I go out in front of 20,000 fans and I love it," says Kadison, who is in her second season as one of the "NETSational" Senior Dancers who perform at Nets games.

The Bergen County native is among the multitude of baby boomers who are rediscovering youthful dreams and long-lost talents or trying out sports typically associated with the young.

Let's call this trend "second childhood," though there's nothing regressive about it.

"Openness to lifelong learning and willingness to keep growing is a hallmark of boomers," says boomer expert Ken Dychtwald, who cites the "enormous proliferation" of adult education programs in America.

Boomers, of course, don't hold the patent on reinvention. Grandma Moses, for example, started painting 70 years ago - when she was in her 70s. But the estimated 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 have really made it a trend. Not only are they maturing in an era of ever-increasing life spans, but Brent Green, author of "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers," says boomers came of age at "a time of creative revolution" - and have never stopped "trying to explore the horizons of their own capabilities."

Meet some local folks who are enjoying a second childhood.

Bob Badami started taking piano lessons when he was 11, from a teacher who lived near his childhood home in North Haledon. By 17, he could play "relatively well," mostly classical piano.

"And then," 51-year-old Badami says, "life got in the way."

In short, he studied botany at Rutgers, got a job in electronics, married, had a child, divorced, remarried and had two more children, now teenagers. Although Badami "always fiddled around" on the piano, a year and a half ago he decided he finally had some free time again and thought "maybe I can get back to the piano."

His piano teacher, Larry Goldstein of Wanaque, travels to Badami's Lincoln Park home for weekly lessons on the shiny baby grand Badami bought to replace his old upright.
"Bob's a great student," says Goldstein, adding that time-pressed adults often give up after taking one or two lessons. "He's very tenacious. He just rips into a piece of music and doesn't let go of it until he's got it. He really puts the time into it."

Badami, who's director of sales for Herley CTI, a subsidiary of a $200 million defense company, shares his motivation: "Whenever I retire, I've always wanted to get good enough to play the piano in a hotel lobby," he says.

Though Badami finds learning the piano "harder" than when he was a kid, he says, "It's great. I love it."

It was 9/11 that prompted Theresa Quirk to rekindle her old childhood love - art.

As a kid, she loved to paint and draw, and when she was 12, her dad enrolled her in a home-study art course. They worked on the assignments together.

"It was a very close thing that we shared for a very short time," Quirk says. "He died when I was 13. He was killed. And everything stopped at that point."

One of six kids left fatherless, Quirk, now 52, left home at 17, eventually earning her high-school equivalency, then attended college. She constantly worked - in accounting, finance, computers - to support herself and then, as a single mom, a daughter from a former marriage.

In the early '90s, Quirk launched QuirkWorks, a successful corporate Web design, marketing and maintenance company that she still runs.

After 9/11, business slowed. But more than that, the terrorist attacks drove home to her, yet again, how quickly life can end.

"I did a lot of soul-searching," says Quirk. "With art, writing, music, you're leaving something behind. You're leaving a legacy."

Quirk decided to make art her main focus. "I didn't want to approach it like, 'Oh, this is fun. I enjoy this. I'm gonna paint a pretty picture.' I said, 'If I'm gonna do this, I'm going do this right.' I'm going to treat it as the rest of my life."

She sought out veteran artists whose work she admired and took workshops with them. "I go from painting to studying, painting to studying," says Quirk, who has a large studio and gallery space in the West Milford home she shares with her husband, Gabe.

Quirk sells her paintings - which include many local scenes as well as landscapes she did in Ireland - on her Web site (tquirk.com). "I paint in a style that's predominantly plein air - painting the outdoors on location," says Quirk, of her oils. "My watercolors, I'll paint from photos."

She often runs into artists who have 40 or 50 years of experience and fears she'll never catch up.

"But all that does is motivate me to learn more," says Quirk. "I think it's important to learn something that's yours, to never stop learning … so that you can sit in a chair when you're 70 years old and you can still produce."

I am 52 and I'm just learning how to snowboard," says Anne Charlap.

Granted, she's no stranger to the slopes, but a lifelong skier who's a Level II instructor at Mahwah's Campgaw Mountain Ski Area (where "tons" of boomers take ski lessons, she says).

Her first time on a snowboard, though, she was "terrified." So, why do it? "It's easier on your knees," Charlap says. "With skiing, I'm using a side-to-side motion. With snowboarding, you lift your toes or heels. So, instead of my knees being involved here, it's just my ankles."

And while "it takes a gazillion years to get really, really good at skiing," with snowboarding, "it's an exponential curve, so it's really hard to learn, and then all of a sudden, you get good," she says.

Though Charlap, who lives in Ramsey, has a 17-year-old daughter, Amelia Cohen, who's a Level I snowboarding instructor at Campgaw, she takes lessons from Harry Vogel, who happens to be 72.

"It keeps you young, because you rewire your brain learning something new," Charlap says. "Plus, snowboarding is so hip now. I feel like I could be the old lady on the hill with all the young guys going, 'Cool.'&Mac217;"

When Jeri Kadison saw in the paper one November day in 2006 that the Nets were holding auditions for a new team of dancers, 60 and up, her heart skipped. Though not exactly cheerleading, it was pretty darn close.

"The kicker is that I'm a huge sports fan. I was always at the arena. I loved the Nets. I stood by them through thick and thin," says Kadison, a language speech pathologist who, after more than 25 years in private practice, turned her attention to communication and stress management training.

The fact that she wouldn't be turning 60 until May 2007 turned out not to be an obstacle. So, down Kadison went to the Nets practice arena in East Rutherford, with her daughter along for moral support. "I got there so early when I signed in, I was No. 1," says Kadison, who had always loved to dance, but had no formal training and no idea the NETSational seniors would be dancing to hip-hop.

Nets Entertainment Manager Kimberlee Garris, a former Knicks dancer, remembers Kadison's audition. "Jeri really stood out, 'cause you could tell how much fun she was having," Garris says. "She was so passionate about dancing. She really gives it her all. … You see on the court that she's just such a positive person and really brings a lot to the team because of that."

The NETSational seniors perform at one home game a month (March 21 and April 1 are their next gigs), dancing in formations - to music and cheering crowds.

"It's the most amazing feeling to be a Nets fan and to be down there," says Kadison, who grew up in Teaneck and raised her two children there, but now lives in Manhattan. "I could stay there the entire night and wave to the fans."

E-mail: rohan@northjersey.com