[Melien, all that follows is not directed at you, just a rant]
As it turns out, I'm too young for all these events. I didn't see the assassinations, the moon landing, Woodstock, Tune in-turn on-drop out, or Tim Leary.
Oh, wait. I did met Tim Leary while I was in college sometime in the 80s. He was on a speaking tour with his fellow "Merry Prankster" Ken Kesey.
Tim Leary was finally out in the open after a pardon for drug offenses from then Governor Jerry Brown.
Ken, author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest", was an enormous fat man in a white shirt and a beret at this time. Nice guy and friendly, but he was probably very stoned. It was Oregon.
Tim couldn't string together a sentence. Really, he didn't have a cogent thought. I reckon that was the drugs and acid and stuff.
Tim would say something like, "The best thing about the bright lights is the how the moss grows on the...society...which we must make in...like bread..."
Kesey's brain wasn't roasted. I guess he had the wisdom not to turn out like Tim.
The point is, I saw the remnants of the sixties. And have been living with the Boomers ever since. I guess cocaine is still a thing? I missed the great cocaine wars in the 80s. Marijuana? Never.
Power. Influence. Money. That's not my bag, baby.
My generation saw Walter Cronkite at the end of the Viet Nam war on the evening news. We saw Nixon impeachment trial every night, we saw Saturday Night Live making fun of President Ford. We saw the economic kill shots and anti-American of Carter. We saw the renewal of duty, honor, country, of Reagan. We saw the Wall between east and west. We saw the wall come down. Thanks, President Reagan.
We saw the puss, corruption and depravity of Clinton. We saw the milquetoast Bush and 9-11.
We fought the longest war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and around the world.
I guess I'm a buffer generation being Gen-X. But how dare you blue-hairs and white-hairs demean the Millennials from your armchairs.
Those kids are the ones that enlisted after 9-11. I've patrolled the streets with them in Baghdad, Kandahar, Qalat, and elsewhere. These kids are giving all and that shouldn't be diminished by a general brush of prejudice because you don't like the tattoos on some punk.
Okay. tattoos on a punk - go ahead and dislike. Especially those ear gauges.
Remember, 'they want you divided'. Let's stay together, FReeQs, FReepers and FRens.
Signed,
A Gen-X, father, husband, son, believer, patriot, and aspiring raconteur and gourmand.
Well, I’m a boomer. Never did drugs of any kind. Never even been drunk. I like a margarita now and then with nachos.
I get tired of being lumped in with flower child and hippies too. The Midwest where I grew up was NOT into any of that. The radical left was in USA then - weather underground-today it’s Antifa.
Generations are not monolithic-not even white haired or blue haired ones. I saw the assassinations. I didn’t think the world was falling apart. I thought there were some bad people that needed to be caught, and was hoping it wasn’t Russia or Cuba (ie nuclear war retalitation).
Never bought the official story-hoped I’d live long enough for ALL the JFK documents to be released and know what really happened. I’m the same age as POTUS. He’s my generation and I’m PROUD of it.
Kit, I was five when Kennedy was shot. I’m the very tail end of the baby boom, so I viewed the Boomers much as you did while I was growing up. I was a kindergartener watching the world go insane.
I have often told people I hate the Boomers, who brought division, vice, selfishness, and irresponsibility to new levels. They gave us the Clintons and Obamas. They destroyed journalism and the education system.
I think there are a lot of us who feel the same, especially the Boomers of the earliest and latest ends of the boom. I share the sentiments of your post... many Boomers will be the ones who can’t be saved.
WWG1WGA!
nice! send it to bigleaguepolitics as an op-ed