When Did We Stop?

We were the ‘hip’ generation. We were going to change the world. We were raised in a post-war economy that gave us record players, pizza, television and highways. We grew our hair long, started wearing work cloths and jewelry.

Instead of milking the cows or baling hay or working in the mines to help the family income, we had the freedom to explore ideas like philosophy, religion, our planet, our neighbors, each other and ourselves. Fueled by herbs and chemistry we formed tribes with our mantra being “peace, love and happiness”.

Man, where did we go wrong?

We thought we had marched against a corrupt government and made the leader fall. We thought we had marched to stop the bomb and no bombs fell. We thought we had marched to free equality for all. We gathered by the thousands to listen to electronic music and had sex anywhere we could. We thought we were a movement and could change the world with ideological chants and late night television.

Hey man, can I crash at your place, my old lady like threw me out man and….

Our parents had gone through the depression, invention of automobiles and the radio and electricity and World War II. Their parents had survived the Civil War, rebuilt and started over before sending boys overseas to fight on foreign soil. Before them our ancestors were looking for a spot of land to settle on, raise some crops and not be slaughtered by Indians.

That is a simplistic history but folks back in time were pretty darn busy just surviving until the Boomer Nation.

We spent our hours in the libraries instead of the fields, championed Mouseketeers instead of old soldiers, we danced with abandon until the Selective Service notice came and wrote Mother Earth as if cloth diapers were better than the throw away synthetic bags at the grocery. We felt noble writing letters and painting signs and marching for the global elimination of baby seal slaughter and the ancient art of harpooning then crept back to our beanbag chairs and east Indian room dividers to take another hit of self righteousness.

When did the change happen?

Well someone had to get a ‘job’ to pay for the brown rice because selling the street chronicles was not a profit maker and the man was cracking down of selling weed. The jealousy in the communes turned to suburbia and gardens turned into lush lawns requiring cutting every weekend. The microbus turned into an SUV for the single soccer mom for our commitment to eternal vows had also faded. We wanted to shake our booties to forget the idols dying so the beat got stronger and faster than those groovy guitar tunes and we invented strobe lights and double knit. The bond fire discussions of politics and meaning of life while singing Kumbaya turned to joining the country club for a round of golf with the boss while pitching your latest marketing wonder while he ogles your wife.

As we grow older our responsibilities stifle our ideals. The children need schooling so the family moves to good schools. Employment opportunities present new opportunity for wealth. People’s values change.

So as us old Boomers sit around on our Naugahyde couches drinking our Pinot Noir watching comical proponents mocking our government and feeling self-deprecating, we sat here and watched the whole thing happen and didn’t move a finger. Our time is running out and the best of our legacy is that no one has dropped another big one while we were alive. The whales are still dying and the earth grows warmer and the war rages on and people die and babies are born as the circle of life goes on and we didn’t do anything.

All those who will argue that the Boomer Nation changed the world must remember the toilet hasn’t changed from its intended function while we were alive.