The world of the late sixties through the election of Reagan was a hideous, frightening place. We had to elect a real grown up to take us back to where our parents had left us.
I couldn't let my wife and child go to the store at night during those days, and the liberal judges were finding every reason under the sky to release the most horrible killers and predators. Patti Hearst was kidnapped by one such bunch. Remember Manson, the Hillside Stranglers, the Freeway Killers, Zodiak, Zebra, Son of Sam? There were more mass murderers than grapes on the trees because of this type of lifestyle.
We were a powerless, listless, out of sorts society. I came from the southern/western bunch of boomers. That's the split you see in elections today, between the SF/Haight Asbury coastal hippies and the good ole boys from the interior who make up the red states. Most of us got drunk and grew our hair over our ears. But we never stopped loving our country, supporting our military, or feeling something wasn't quite right with the way Watergate and Vietnam ended. We listened to Led Zeppelin, but liked Lynyrd Skynyrd a whole lot better.
I ended up in AA and sixteen years later am still working to get people out of the lifestyle and depression and self centered loathesomeness that caused him to end his life as he did.
They can celebrate him any way they want to. All I see is waste, like so much of my generation. The Soviets did their work well.
I grew up in that generation as a non-drug user. I actually thought it was a good idea to study hard and stay out of trouble. Our generation produced some really, really bad ideas and characters.