Posted on 06/07/2004 1:31:59 PM PDT by Cinnamon Girl
We’re Not Gen-X, We’re Gen-Reagan
This is for everyone who was raised to believe that our young lives would soon end in a nuclear war, of mutually assured destruction, quivering under our school desks with President Reagan to thank for making the pink and gray tile on our classroom floors the last thing we would ever see.
This is for those of us raised in the post-graduate, post-doctorate suburbs where Volkswagens and Volvos taught us that we “can’t hug our children with nuclear arms” and that “war is not healthy for children and other living things.”
This is for the generation that grew up watching “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “Laverne & Shirley,” “Cosby Show” and hundreds of bad impressions of President Reagan as a shellac haired cowboy buffoon who didn’t have a thought in his head, followed by impressions of Dan Quayle as a simple minded bad speller who attacked the beloved “Murphy Brown” for having a baby and no husband, followed (in our adulthood) by monkey-like caricatures of the ignorant and stupid cowboy-war-monger President Bush.
We know who we are. We accept the moniker “Generation X” and we don’t even know what the heck that means. It might have something to do with being jaded and feeling crappy about dolphins in canned tuna, and about the tragic death of Kurt Cobane. It probably refers to a specific group of people who saw every John Hughes “teen” movie and point to “The Breakfast Club” as a virtual documentary. It has never signified the Generation that grew up feeling good about America because of President Ronald Reagan.
Our generation went from an early childhood of Jimmy Carter, a droopy peanut farmer with big teeth and a hostage crisis, to a happy, energetic, powerful and confident Republican president who suddenly made politics interesting.
I remember watching a Carter/Reagan debate by myself one night when my mom was out. There was no doubt in my mind that Ronald Reagan would be president. He was irresistible, and he made America sound like an exciting, attractive place.
I remember collapsing on the couch in the family room, feeling as if I’d been punched in the stomach, the day President Reagan was shot. It was in middle school. There was no discussion of the event by teachers or even the principal. My happiness that he would survive was a quiet and personal event.
While family friends and neighbors continued to wring their hands, and angrily mock what they called “Reagan’s Star Wars fantasy,” I remember him saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” He just seemed really gutsy. And my neighbors, who said “Visualize World Peace,” and meant it, seemed passé. Action, not words. That was hot.
In high school, I remember a school assembly before Reagan’s re-election. Nobody in our debate team wanted to be on the pro-Mondale side. Reagan’s second big win was a done deal and everyone knew it. Even before we could convincingly articulate our reasons for supporting President Reagan, and long before we could vote for him, we knew he was great, and that he was helping us.
In college, I waited in a long line of other students at USC to vote for President Reagan’s then Vice President, G.H.W. Bush. When I finally got to a voting booth, inside the small house of a Mexican-American family, I noticed on their mantle, a big framed photograph of President Reagan. That’s right. That is right.
When his second term was over, President Reagan came to speak at USC. Somehow, I managed to get a seat in the fully packed auditorium to see President Reagan in person. The standing ovation, when he took the stage, was 11 minutes long. And he was dazzling, of course. We were all riding the high for a long while afterward.
The first time I went to the Reagan Library, I was most impressed by the big chunk of graffitied Berlin Wall sitting outside, above the valley. I knew what that was about. That was a part of my growing up memories.
Tonight, I plan to go again to the Reagan Library, to pay my respects to the man who had a greater influence on my generation than any other person the media or the pundits bring to mind.
Thank you, President Reagan. G-d Bless you. And G-d Bless America.
And not all of the so called 'greatest generation' are all that great.
Don't forget Red Dawn.
Nope, loved that show.
Gosh, are you really sure about that?</sarcasm> ;O)
I am not a statistician, so I cannot fully appreciate the extent to which the demographic studies go, but I have never thought those particular polls/data to be representative of what I understood to be happening when I decided to take note of what was going on...and that wasn't really until I was aware that I was going to be a part of that society pretty soon...that usually takes up to about 20 years for a person.
I'd say the generational thing needs to take more into account than statistical data from national census.
If anyone heard the broadcast with this caller, I'd love to hear what was discussed (and if Rush had any particular reaction to the term GenReagan.)
I would love to hear that.
Oh, well, Ive missed a lot of stuff in my life...
Except remember that they had to bring home Alex's eccentricities by putting a poster of Nixon in his room.
Defeated Communism
Revitalized the world economy
Reinvigorated a major party in the world's most powerful country.
And....
Created a cultural explosion - the whole yuppie thing. Hey, don't laugh. Name another fad where kids dressed neatly.
Great essay!
We're going to win this war, because we have the secret weapon: Ronny Ray-Gun
For me, he is the embodiment of a grandfather: strong when he needs to be, funny when you least expect it, and spoils you rotten with love and security.
Just call me a member of Generation Reagan.
I agree but there is really no way to really perfectly nail down a time period of a generation. Even using a 20 year standard isn't that accurate because you are talking about people born in say 1965 and 1985 being in the same generation, Which they are obviously very different.
I think the best way to define the years of a generation is by which previous generation was the majority of parents during those years.
For example,
When the WWII generation was the majority of parents their kids would be the Baby Boomers,
When the Silient generation was the majority of parents their kids would be Generation Jones (What we know today as the late disco era boomers)
When the baby boomers were the majority of parents the kids are Gen-X
When Generation Jones were the majority of parents the kids are Gen-Y
Since Gen-X is so small we could probably merge the Xs&Ys kids into Gen-Z
Me too. I was born in '62, so by the "after '65" definition I am not strictly an X-er. However .... my folks were, although born in '35, drawn to the hippies and liked to hang out with people 5 to 10 years younger than them. I was a latch key kid from age 10 onward. I took longer than most to shed the Lefty baggage my folks tried to load me up with, but, thank God, I attended school at UCSB where I hung out with real Americans from places like Orange County and the rural Socal hinterlands. By the time I was a fully self sufficient adult I was substantially to the Right of my folks and was a member of the GOP.
To be fair, the Greatest Generation were very naive in many ways. They had not grown up with TV and did not appreciate the impact it would have on their kids. Typically their first dealings with any sort of geopolitical thinking was fighting in WW2. They did not know what "recreational drugs" were and scratched their heads about the "youth rebellion." They simply did not have the life experience to deal with the "brave new world" of the 1960s. Their kids were effectively kidnapped by the liberal rats and the KGB.
Although born in '62, while a late teen, I once wore a punk T-shirt I produced (e.g. an old torn up one, to which I added safty pins and spray painted "art") through a nearby shopping mall. One of the things spray painted on it was "Disco Sucks!" ;) LOL ...
High School Class of '80 - my pop music > punk, wave, rap, metal, country ...... other music > Classical, classic jazz (not new age!), etc
Great point! There is a whole lot of truth in that! Thanks for taking the time to post it. I really had not considered how much things had changed and that generation not fully considering the impact of those things on their children.
OMG! Almost everything you posted sums up my childhood, teen years.
The Breakfast Club was/is the best! But more importantly, I will never forget how weird it felt after Reagan. His deeds left me with a whole new outlook on life; one I had little hope for.
I remember thinking "WOW I better get my butt in gear because it looks like I will grow-up after all".
I didn't care much about anything before Reagan because I thought why bother I'm going to die before I ever get a chance to start any kind of life responsabilities.
I found myself looking to Big Ron for comforting words any time things went wrong back then. I was a senior in High School when the shuttle went down. I cried all day, as did most of my class mates. I couldn't wait to get home to see him on TV because I knew he would make me feel better.
As it turns out he made the whole world better feel better that day, and he left us knowing there was a better tomorrow.
THANKS FOR POSTING THIS!
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