A teenage grocery store clerk’s innocent comment made my personal aging clock tick a lot louder.

I had picked up some greeting cards to give to friends congratulating them on their accomplishments. Before the clerk at the store rang them up, she sweetly asked, “Will you be using your senior discount today?”

That was a first for me. But instead of becoming upset, I asked the high school sophomore what the cutoff was for the senior discount. She said it was 55.

I just turned 52, making that double-nickel aging reality a lot closer. That’s not just my concern, but it’s a growing issue for my 78 million baby boom contemporaries, the nation and my community.

The baby boom generation is huge — starting in 1946 and ending in 1964.

Baby boomers have disrupted every aspect of society. We transformed hospitals with our births; schools and colleges, which educated us; cars, which made us mobile; jobs, where we found work; housing; shopping options, with the explosion of malls; banking and securities; health care as we get older. The worst is to come.

A Foundation on Aging report said: “Nobody will be able to say we didn’t see it coming. Our over-65 population will double by 2020. By 2012 nearly 20 percent of the work force will be over 55. We already face a shortage of trained caregivers. And noted economists are predicting the bankruptcy of our federal entitlement programs for older adults if we don’t act soon.”

The Foundation on Aging in 2005 received a grant from the Administration on Aging to develop a strategic community-based plan for aging for the Kansas City area. The goal is “to make Kansas City a great place to grow older by providing our community’s older adults with greater autonomy, more choices and better access to services.”

The report needs to be taken seriously and implemented so aging boomers can be assets as they age rather than a drag.

The report recommends that employers support workers who are also caregivers. The report said the median income in 2003 among caregiver households was 14.4 percent less than median income for all other households.

The foundation also recommends expanding affordable respite-care options, addressing families’ mental health needs while they care for older adults.

Aging baby boomers, I am afraid, will fight giving up the freedom their cars provide. We will need viable transportation options.

The foundation recommends that roads be safer for older drivers. Assisted transportation options must be better coordinated and expanded. The area must have regional transit options.

Civic involvement also will be increasingly important for older boomers. The report said we must engage the long-apathetic boomer generation and retain those who volunteer. The spiritual, emotional and mental development of boomers must be encouraged, and corporations have to be helped to know how to prepare for the aging work force.

As we age, communities that once nurtured young families will be home to older people. The report recommends supporting naturally occurring retirement communities, promoting a shift to resident-centered care in long-term facilities, and changing architectural designs and services to facilitate aging at home.

That’s a lot. However, we don’t have a choice but to act. The clock won’t stop, and with each passing day the surge of aging baby boomers grows bigger and stronger.