I am a proud member of the baby boomer generation. Baby boomers are usually defined as the cohort of people born between 1946 and 1964 and our path through the decades has been widely documented and often criticized. No matter how you slice it, though, we have witnessed quite a slice of history and, as we as we now embark on our own retirement, it is a perfect time to reflect on what we have been a part of, contributed to, witnessed and just plain endured. It has been quite a “trip.”
From the very moment of our explosion onto the scene in the years following the second world war, we have been immersed in changes that preceding generations could not have even imagined when they first joined the human race on planet earth. A huge, world-wide war had defeated the ambitions of the Nazis and the atomic age had been born in the process. Mass destruction of the human race was not just a nightmare anymore, it was entirely possible and we would live with that threat for the rest of our days. You cannot “unmake” a nuclear bomb. This threat of mutual destruction defined what would become the Cold War and images of Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at the United Nations was flash-frozen into our childhood years. The Cuban missile crisis nearly brought an end to our days and our dreams of growing old. A beloved President and his call to “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your county,” died in a terrible instant in Dallas in 1963.All this took place just as the last wave of boomers was entering the scene. Our lives and our futures changed forever on that fateful afternoon.
Color television had just been invented and Walt Disney and Bonanza opened our eyes and homes to a vast new technology and spectacular view of our world. I still vividly remember the day my father brought home our brand- new RCA color tv, hooking it up, playing with the “rabbit ears” and marveling at what technology had just produced. The colors stunned us and when the NBC peacock displayed those brilliant tail feathers, we were caught up in the wonder of it all. What a glorious time to be alive!
My teenage years saw the Vietnam war drag on and many of my friends drafted and sent off to fight in an increasingly unpopular event on the other side of the world. Some of those friends never returned and a few of them came home to derision, hatred and a life that would never be the same. I sat frozen in front of my television and watched my draft lottery with more than a passing interest. I was awarded draft number 195 and it was projected that numbers up to 185 would be called that year. I did not feel safe, however, and one of my best friends drew number 3. He promptly enlisted in the National Guard. I went on to college, which got me a student deferral that was promptly eliminated during my senior year of college. My 1-A draft card still rests in my personal records in the back of the closet. I took my army physical, passed it and waited for a call that would never come. They did, indeed, draft up to umber 185 that year. The following year saw the war begin to wind to its ugly conclusion and I was never inducted into the military. Luck and a lot of praying tossed me on to a very different path.
I applied and was admitted to college, met and married the finest woman in the entire world and we married her, less than a month after graduation. I earned a degree in Education and dreamed of becoming a teacher in the inner city, just like my role model from the sitcom, “Welcome Back Kotter.” I lived that dream for exactly one year, teaching in the inner city of Buffalo, New York. A budget crisis and the dismissal of hundreds of teachers, crushed that dream and I am confident that I would never have left that job had the school board found a way to fund my position for one more year. It was then that I decided to enter corporate America and I would never return to public education. I did, however, return to the classroom as an Adult Educator, a title I am proud to still hold as I pass my 60th year of life.
We baby boomers have observed, not only the birth of color television, but also the landing of humans on the moon and spaceshipss that travel to distant planets and beyond. We have seen filing cabinets all but disappear as the computer, internet and microchip entered our lexicon. Equality for everyone is steadily becoming a reality. I still recall segregation, “separate but equal,” women’s rights, gay pride marches and Supreme Court rulings allowing abortions. 12 Presidents have come and gone in our lifetimes and while there have been no world wars like the one that spawned our generation, many “police actions” and smaller, yet just as intense conflicts, have dominated our lives. The word “terrorist” did not exist when we were first thrust onto the planet, but it now invades our lives almost every day. Two towers that once stood on the island of Manhattan were destroyed, along with thousands of innocent lives on that terrible fall morning in 2001. Terrorism had come to our shores and shows no signs of leaving anytime soon.
Woodstock and the “Summer of Love” shaped and molded our teenage years. Rock and Roll was said to have died, Disco did die, (thankfully) and we have witnessed many of our Rock and Roll legends die, grow old, become irrelevant and then relevant again. Some of these icons still manage to tour and this year, the one group we all thought would die off first, “The Rolling Stones.” are touring yet again. Record albums and 45s have been replaced with digital recordings and we can now download music in a few seconds from anywhere. I still remember walking down to the Woolworth”s to buy my first record. Now, both that record and the Woolworth’s of my youth are gone.
My father bought me my first car, a Corvair for $200. He thought we were cheated. In retrospect, we most likely were, but that car took me places I never could only have imagined before that car became mine and the gas tank could be filled for less than $5.00. I drove that Corvair everywhere, from Buffalo to Toronto, to Cleveland and just about everywhere in-between. My days were spent in school, my afternoons and weekends in the car living a new adventure. I could vote, drink beer and thoroughly enjoy life. I did all of these options religiously. The music was great, the times, they were “a changing” and baby boomers were getting married and having children of their own. We did, too and raised two marvelous children who are now adults that any parent would be proud of. We accomplished all of this in a town and state not too far from where we were born. Yet we rarely returned, except for the four funerals of our parents, a few weddings here and there, baptisms and the occasional visit to just catch up. The years flew by and we wondered where the time had gone as we spent it making money, rearing our children and taking the obligatory trip to somewhere else.
Email was discovered, “Snail Mail” started to die and so did some of our Baby Boomer members. A cousin here, a high school friend there, a college buddy and people we kind of remembered, but were reminded of with the obituary. Our friends parents passed on and we began to attend more funerals than weddings. The weddings of our friends children began to take place and those children started creating a generation that would soon be labeled “The millennials.” It is said that their numbers will exceed our own. I have no doubt this will be true. Our numbers decrease every day. The torch has been passed.
We have witnessed events that may not even have been imagined by even the most imaginative science fiction writers of our time. We went from speeding on a highway to traveling beyond the speed of sound. From color television to high-definition, from a 20 pound television to the internet in our hands. Work in a factory has moved to laboring in a “cube.” Military-style management has been replaced by matrix organizations and sports records of all kinds fall with regularity as we are better trained, eat better foods and better understand the nature of our being. Medical science has cured many diseases we feared in our childhood, like polio and the promise of a cure for cancer,once unthinkable, could well be on the horizon. Of course, the costs of these advances has exploded and we all wonder what the next procedure will cost us.
Yes,we have lived in strange times, indeed. Few, if any of us could have predicted what we now take for granted. Instant messaging, the ubiquitous phone, constantly in our hands. Unleaded gasoline and cars that cost more than our first house. As we embark on our twilight and golden years, depending how you look at them, we can glance both back and ahead. We recall fondly the days of our youth and the many fine people who have not survived the journey and all its dangers. We look forward, with hope, to the dreams of our children and their children. We ponder what marvels they will witness and create for their children. Our time on this unique planet is racing toward its end. A new and hopefully better generation is just now beginning to see the sun rise on their own futures adventures and discoveries. I pray that we have given them something to build on and hope that no matter where those adventures might take them, that they never forget how they arrived. I suspect they will, and in the process, build a better tomorrow that adds yet another page to that marvelous journal we call our life.