Not The Greatest

A Brief History of the Baby Boomer Generation

My parents were born in 1920, which seems now to be in a different historical era. They were children in the Roaring ’20s, teenagers through the Great Depression, young adults at the beginning of  World War II.

They are the Greatest Generation. They put off everything to fight the war. Then the boys came home — the ones who survived — and started making up for lost time. They attended college in greater numbers than ever before, under the GI Bill, married and bought brand new ticky-tacky houses with VA loans. And they had children. Did they ever.

The Greatest Generation shared hardship, service, accomplishment, victory. Then they settled down and didn’t look back much. As they had devoted themselves to country in the 1940s, they devoted themselves to work and family in the 1950s and 1960s. They created my generation.

We’re the Baby Boomer generation. We are NOT the greatest, not even close, as Garrison Keeler wryly observed.

Cold War, Civil Rights, Vietnam

We had a shared history in the 1950s — polio shots and “duck and cover.”  Those of us who remember the 50s and 60s grew up with an awareness of unseen danger in the world, and a gradual awakening to inequality in America.

Though others see us as a monolithic cohort, the Boomer generation was divided in the 1960s and early 1970s by different, even opposite experiences. Many of us went to college, and many did not. We went to Vietnam, or we opposed the war (some did both).

The country cracked apart, during the 1960s, along social and economic lines. First the Civil Rights Movement, then the Vietnam War and the Peace Movement. The divide deepened and hardened in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Make love not war. Don’t trust anyone over 30.

Bombing in Vietnam, violence at home. Five assassinations in the 60s.  Medgar Evers, John F. Kennedy,  Malcolm X. In 1968 alone, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy.

KENT STATE — Four dead in Ohio.

(“Have you seen my old friend, Bobby?  I thought I saw him walking up over the hill, with Abraham and Martin and John.”)

In 1970, Kent State.

The divide continued:  McGovern vs. Nixon. Watergate finished the job.

“Give peace a chance.”  But not much of a chance.  John Lennon was murdered in New York in 1980.

Change The World

We were idealistic and invincible. We were also sophomoric, materialistic, and later, greedy. We were NOT going to be like our parents. (Was it their greatness, their victories, their certainty, that made us so rebellious?  Why did we resent them? Why did we perceive them as empty hypocrites?)  WE would not make  THEIR mistakes. We were going to change the world. Make it better. The Age of Aquarius. We would “be forever young.” We’d “fight and never lose.”  Far out. Right on!

United States presidents, post-World War II to present:

1. Harry Truman
2. Dwight Eisenhower
3. John Kennedy
4. Lyndon Johnson
5. Richard Nixon
6. Jimmy Carter
7. Ronald Reagan
8. George Bush
9. Bill Clinton
10. George Bush
11. Barack Obama

When I look at  the list of presidents, I see a line broken into two parts. Historical continuity from Truman through Nixon. A poignant, disappointing interlude with Jimmy Carter and the Iran Hostage Crisis.

And then a historic political change, with Ronald Reagan. The Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush era.

The election of  President Barack Obama, the first black president, seems like another historic change.  Or will it be another disappointing interlude?

Our generation never quite figured out  HOW to change the world, or even agreed on what changes we wanted. We decided that we didn’t want the next generation to follow the example of the hippy lifestyle, the get-high and free-love culture.

In many ways, perhaps, we sold out to the “system” we had rebelled against. By the 1990s, we gave in to war with hardly a protest, in Kuwait and Iraq.

It doesn’t seem like we changed the world. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem like we grew up and took charge. In some ways, management of the economy and leadership of the nation seemed to skip over our generation.

Where did the years go?  Where did our lives go? (Where have all the flowers gone?)

Welcome to a new century. The world has turned, and it keeps turning. We have entered an era of worldwide economic, social, and political change. Not the Age of Aquarius, but the World Wide Web and the Global Economy. We’re old enough and experienced enough to understand that the world is not subject to our control. But we also still believe that one person can make a difference, and that two or more people working together can be a powerful force.

The Boomer generation is turning 60 . . . We’re not done yet, not by a long shot . . . Some of us will raise retirement to a new level of materialism and hedonism . . .  Perhaps many of us will reclaim our youthful idealism . . .  Some may find refuge in simplicity and service.

As Robert Frost wrote, we “have miles to go before we sleep.”

— John Hayden, Sept. 2009