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May 14, 2004
A groovy look backwards
While I applaud the sacrifices they made, I could make the argument that my generation was a great generation, having come of age in the 1960s and 1970s, during the era of the baby boomers. The rock band The Who even paid tribute in the song "My Generation." I have to admit my parents faced a lot more trials and tribulations, though. My parents went through the Great Depression. I still remember my mother fastidiously saving every leftover, storing it in a plastic container, labeling it and putting it in the refrigerator, a thriftiness she no doubt learned during those tough times in the 1930s. I still remember, as a child, the old-timers talking about how they could buy a loaf of bread for a nickel during the Depression. Then there was "the big one," WWII. I wonder if many of those soldiers who returned from the battles in Japan and Europe thought that was going to be the end of war, the world was finally going to be at everlasting peace. For my generation, we lived through a time of great change in the 1960s that this country hasn't seen since. It began with the Civil Rights Movement, and then pretty soon numerous other groups fought for their freedoms. The rules have been changed for everyone. A few years ago, a woman told me she didn't like the 1970s, commenting about her dislike for disco. I had to ask what the '90s would be remembered for, rap music? I'll maintain the early to mid 1970s had some of the best musical creativity, as the simplistic rock n' roll of the 1960s Beatles era gave way to the more artistically developed sounds, with groups like The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and numerous others appearing on the scene. The jazz world blossomed with fusion. Late night conversations sometimes turned to what Jimi Hendrix would be into if he were still alive, unfortunately he passed away at the start of the '70s. It was a time when America learned to be casual. I remember the scenes of people wearing blue jeans with patches, women with halter-tops, squatting on the ground at a park watching outdoors rock concerts. While I was only a junior in high school when Woodstock was held, that feeling of optimism carried on for years afterwards. It didn't take long for those newfound freedoms to erode, however. The AIDS epidemic ushered in the 1980s, telling us all that God apparently didn't want us having free sex like animals. I admit I took many rides home from a bar not wondering how I wound up in bed the next morning after all the drinking, it sure wouldn't be smart to do that any more. There was a drug problem back then, but it seemed to be more casual use. College kids got stoned on marijuana and LSD, or popped some white crosses, cheap speed, but there didn't appear to be many hardcore drug addicts hooked on crack or methamphetamine. Like people who speculated on Jimi Hendrix, there were also those people who speculated marijuana would be legal in 10 years, or talked about "the revolution," whatever that meant. The political feeling of the era was it was time to give a damn about your fellow man. There was President Johnson's War on Poverty. The U.S. Environmental Protection Administration was created under President Nixon, a response to the environmental movement. There was the first Earth Day. I recall my liberal high school teacher letting us out of school to march in the Mobilization Against the War in Vietnam through downtown Milwaukee in 1970. The draft was a major gorilla hanging over high school graduates, young men enrolled in college to get student deferments, when those were eliminated, they hoped for high lottery numbers. Unfortunately, instead of cheering crowds after World War II, veterans came home to a less than friendly reception after Vietnam. But the war still told us something - that Americans couldn't conquer the world as we once thought, that we should pick our battles wisely. In the end it was Communism that was defeated, but not by war, but by the fact it wasn't a feasible philosophy. Now the baby boomers are aging, some bald men wear a braided lock of ponytail as a sign of their rebellion. Youths today appear to like to get tattoos to rebel against their parents who wore their hair long themselves. As many of the 1960s flower children get ready for retirement, more and more of us are worried the promises of Social Security and Medicare won't be there for us, like the lifetime job security people used to count on. It's easy to look back on those days of youth with rose-colored glasses. But I'm convinced this bulge of population born right after World War II made its mark on society. Maybe the book title for those baby boomers could read "My Generation." (Write to Mark Waite at mwaite@pvtimes.com.) |
