I am 57 years old. I have no children of my own, but if situations had been different, my oldest would about 30 years old or so. About the median age of the Occupy Wall Street people. I recently read a response from a 31 year old veteran that he had lost faith in his parent’s generation in that they would make the world a better place. I am his parent’s generation.
In one way, I think he is right. We did him wrong. We had come from the idyllic world of the 50’s and 60’s and we had it so good. We had jobs and a great economy. We had world peace and the future was so bright. The land was pure and clean. And then in the past few years, we threw it all away, according to him. Well, that is BS.
My parents lived through the Second World War. My father served in the Navy. My parents were poor by anyone’s standards, but since they lived in rural areas, they had enough to eat, clothing, a roof and a school. My mother never finished college I think because of the war. My father went to college on the GI Bill. Both worked pretty hard to provide us with the same things they had, enough to eat, clothing, a roof and a school. We got the luxuries of a family vacation (in a car, no air conditioning), our own rooms (there were only my sister and I), a good Christmas and a rare dinner out. They tried to sheltered us from the bad things around us, but frankly no one could do that.
The article implied that we had it good and blew it. Yup, I remember the good times: Cuban Missile Crisis; the Cold War; West Berlin and Checkpoint Charlie; the Viet Nam War; the Oil Crisis of the 70’s; the recessions of the 80’s and 90’s, there may have been one in 00’s, but since I wasn’t working then, I may have missed it; and one that still sticks in my mind, President Kennedy’s assassination. I thought the world would end that day.
I remember walking down the street as a very little boy during the Cuban Missile Crisis wondering why my parents were so weirded out and I was looking for Russian Bombers over Peoria. I understood there was a target there. The TV was on, but I wasn’t allowed to watch it. It was just some talking head. I didn’t understand it, but I knew something was wrong.
I remember going to the Court House to sign up for the draft. The Viet Nam War was winding down, but they were still taking people with very low numbers. All it took was the wrong two ping pong balls coming up and my life would have to change rapidly. I didn’t have to. But I was lucky, I didn’t know anyone that went to Viet Nam, but I saw the obituaries in the local paper of older boys who wouldn’t come home. I knew some of their brothers and sisters. I met a lot of guys in college who had returned. Some with missing limbs. Some with their heads messed up. . I doubt anyone who went came back normal. I also remember the protests and took part in a few while in high school. My father didn’t want me too because he didn’t want to get in trouble with the college he taught at. I did anyway. I now understand his reason and position.
I remember the long lines of cars during the oil crisis in the 70’s. I couldn’t afford a new car, so you just drove a little less and tried to save fuel. It frankly occupied your mind as to how to survive. And of course, we worried that this was the start of another war in which I could be drafted. I think I had deferments, but all it took was a doctor to say, no, you’ll be fine and I could be 1-A.
I remember big layoffs in the 80’s and 90’s. I remember when they would lay off people and everyone was called in one at a time and told if you were still employed. I remember women coming out crying because they had been let go. I felt guilty that day.
I wasn’t very old when President Kennedy was killed. A kid in class who went home for lunch heard it and came back and told the class and the teacher. It was a Catholic school. The nuns were devastated. We were in shock. There was a part of me that died that day. President Kennedy was hope. He had big ideas. He wanted to make the world better. And they shot him.
Your parents went through the same thing. So they hovered, protected and tried to isolated you from the world. Maybe our generation should have let you see more of the bad stuff like we saw. Our parents tried to protect us because they had seen true evil. We should have let you develop the antibodies to the evil of the world we got. We didn’t . And by doing so, we allowed the evil to grow a little larger.
And now you think the world needs to change. It does. We wanted it to change so badly. But it doesn’t change easily. And it will not change overnight. This isn’t an after-school special where the bully learns to be friends in an hour. Your generation is giving up hope. I lived through enough stuff and I don’t give up hope. There will always be evil in the world. There will always be greed. There will always be sin. There will always be despair. My parents fought it the best they could. We fought it the best we could. And now you can fight it too. But you can not give up hope.
