Where'd Those Kids Get To Now??
Dudes and Dudettes of the XGen,
This is a good thing.
Do not be saddened they forgot us. We are flying under the radar still!
Think like a Middle Child and...enjoy your freedoms~
"Free To Be... You and Me!" (never saw it myself, but I guess it was influential to the educators who helped -- not -- raise us...)
We got a good look at pre-AIDS sexual freedoms for our older Boomer brothers and sisters (in spirit, not family), but with the warnings well in advance unless you started young in the late 70s/early 80s with older partners; we had superpsychedelic graphics early in our cartoons and movie themes (Pufn Stuff and Witchie Poo and the magic flute, anyone?)(Big John... Little John?)(The Red Hand gang?) Ok, that last one was not drug-induced, just a good kids' show; we came of age before the commercialized music scene, when there was some really good rock out there, everywhere, playing on the radio...
Down in the hollow
Playin' a new game
Laughin' and a-runnin', hey, hey
Skippin' and a-jumpin'
In the misty morning fog with
Our, our hearts a-thumping
Who knew it wasn't a kids' song then? And though it dropped in '67, before some of us were born, tunes like that were in constant spin as we grew up in the wake of the Baby Boomers, some solid Country too... ("I'm a little bit country... and I'm a little bit rock and roll!" Who didn't love Donny, Marie and even lil Jimmy? Those toothy Osmonds were our Jacksons really... we got to hear Michael as a kid with the 5, and came of age with his Victory tour, but were too young to be in his molestation age range...);
we got to see a lot of the good movies (that they later remade and kept tacking tacky sequels and prequels onto) in their first runs... BadNewsBears; Star Wars; Superman, etc. and in the cheap theaters, then on cable or VCR if you missed them in the theaters... Culturally, we consumed less crap than today, I think.
It's been a good life for us, even if we did not have the numbers to empower us to replace the Boomers until their own progeny stormed the gates. For minorities of our generation, the doors were not only opened and the welcome mats laid out, but they were enriched (some say unjustly even) to make up for all the slings and arrows Black people suffered earlier... if you were able to access the reparations and affirmative-help, it goes without saying. (Those that did: Big Successes!) The hiring freezes of the early 90s did not apply to minority candidates, who were even actively recruited out of their fields of study, to up minority numbers in corporate workplaces...
(OK, wait, I'm getting off track whether that was a good thing, or a bad thing, if you were one of those discriminated against on the color of your white skin back then...)
Point is: pace yourself, take care of yourself, and don't worry if you are not drawing the attention of the other generations. In the long term, we really have had the best of both worlds... I wouldn't go back to the days of card catalogues and the Periodic Journals for primary resource sources if you paid me. (ok, I probably would venture back there, if you paid me enough... ;-). Just think: you can pretty much put your hands on any book in the world now, if you have amazon access and are willing to pay the seller's price and shipping. Have you ever ordered anything from overseas booksellers? It doesn't take months either.
We are able to appreciate what we have now, AND remember back when things were better... ;-)
Sure, a lot of the products we had back then were better built, with more quality materials... My point is: we got in on the era of muscle cars and real steel. Now we're seeing electric cars, and might even get in one ourselves, if the prices ever drop... We had land-lines with no static and no dropped calls, but were tethered to their cords, restricted by distance... Not so much anymore, eh?
Many of us didn't get on an airplane until we were a bit older (Summer 1978, 9 years old for me, over to Ireland as my first flight...) but we knew pre 9-11 travel as young adults. I remember taking a Greyhound up from Florida for the holidays one winter, then checking the classified ads in the Chicago Tribune, and buying a one-way ticket back from a lady who could not use it... Yes, plane tickets were easily "transferrable" then! Can you imagine? I wasn't pretending to be her, just flew on the ticket, which was exchangeable...
We saw good sports - - before the money came in and put it out of reach for everybody except the well-to-do and their offspring, pretty much; and there was simply more solidarity and community amongst the American people because fewer of us had second (and third and fourth and fifth) homes, and people stayed home in the summers, not running off to a "better" country to visit because America... bah.
I LOVED the Bicentennial celebrations: Spirit of '76!, the red, white and blue everywhere; the neighborhood WWII vets and VietNam guys too parading on our streets and giving away hotdogs afterwards at the Legion; the travelling Liberty Bell; the patriotic musicals we put on in grade school...
(Are you? Are you for Independence? Are you... for the Pursuit of Happiness? For Life and Liberty and Free-ee-dom, America... Votes YES!) I also know, alphabetically in song form, all the states in the union: (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut... Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana... Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine... Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan... Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana... Nebraska ... Nevada ... NEW Hampshire, NEW Jersey, NEW Mexico, NEW York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio! ... Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island... South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texasssss..., Utah!, Vermont!, Virginia, Washington... West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyooooo-ming!)
Tell me if computer-aided youngsters today will be able to remember 46 years later all the states. (Ok, I did have to Google "states in alphabetic order" because I forgot "Nebraska, Nevada...") Point is, we got a lot of quality stuff, PLUS the later benefits of computers. Ever go to a concert and years later, wonder the date, or song list... it's on the Internet now. Best of both worlds, I tell ya.
Let them forget us then. WE haven't forgotten, have we? Some of our offspring has been blessed to actually visit all 50 states, without the snarky cynical attitudes that too often accompany the more spoiled Boomers and their offspring... not that they are all self-centered like that, but again, I'm glad I didn't come up earlier or later.
GenX is just all right. And that's good enough for me...
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| "Do you remember when?"... we used to sing! (but NOT in the library!) sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-ti dah... just like that... Gonna die me an old man with a ... transistor radio. |
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