Then and Now

On the Today show they had a 50s retrospective – with dance contest and judges. Katie Couric was dressed in a poodle skirt, pony tail, and Mat Lauer had on a black leather jacket and a DA haircut. It brought back a lot of memories, because I began my teenage years in the late 1950s and remembered the music, the look, and those great saddle shoes with white bobby sox.

Pat Boone and Little Richard were two of the judges for the dance contest, and both are in their golden years. Pat Boone just started a record label for artists from the past for those of us who would like to hear the kind of music we really grooved to during our own growing years.

Several years ago I heard about a study that was done with people who were seniors. They took individuals from a nursing home and put them into a house that was completely restored to look exactly like things would have been when they were in their prime. They had radios, music, and magazines from that era. Everything was geared toward bringing these people back to themselves as vital, youthful individuals. The results astounded the researchers. The health problems lessened. The vitality rose. The enthusiasm and sense of hope was renewed, because suddenly this group felt relevant. They were no longer cast offs.

We do that in this country. It is truly amazing how we waste talent and experience of groups that don’t fit our 15 minute attention span idea of reality. Little children are trivialized or made to be older than they are before their time. People over 40 begin to feel that life is behind them when the life expectancy is now somewhere in the mid 80s and beyond. Our range of what is “in” is trivial. We have left ourselves nothing to enjoy at each stage of life as we are either rushing to become a certain age, or lamenting its passing.

My generation – or the one just following me – bears responsibility to a point for this preoccupation with self, youth, bad manners. The Baby Boomers made it quite clear that no one over 30 was to be trusted, and the generations that followed agreed. This generation has not shown the kind of character that our parents had. It has brought some revolutionary concepts to the fore and developed a field in which youthful ideas are highly prized, but it has not demonstrated depth of experience and understanding that previous generations had. After all, they went through real suffering that we never had to experience. Our big woe was Vietnam. Theirs was the First World War, the depression, and World War II. They learned at an early age that things do not always stay the same. And it gave them resilience and character. We never learned that.

Even though I am technically a war baby, I was right on the cusp of the booming birth rate, and I experienced the changeover from the innocent “Happy Days” 50’s to the tumultuous drug infested 60s. It happened while I was in college. Over the summer of 1963 everything shifted. It wasn’t gradual. It was immediate. And it was as though someone cut out a huge frame of change and just put the end result right in front of us. Boom. Just like that. Sexuality exploded. Free love was everywhere. And so were joints. People were drinking and smoking – and the music shifted as dramatically as everything else. Vietnam heated up, and those who pierced through the veil of reality through usage of LSD and other mind altering substances began to bring their visions back to the rest of us, insisting that what they saw was “real”, and what we were doing was bogus.

As I said, I had one foot in the old world, and one in the new. I didn’t really like either.

I always liked older people. I was an only child, so adults were my companions. Children seemed childish – as they should have been. I grew up way before my time, but gained insight into people that has always benefited me. The elders had great stories to tell. I loved hearing about an old family friend’s growing up years in the Swiss Alps. She lived the life of the character in a book called Heidi that I enjoyed so much. Then there were the stories of time before the depression and how the stock market crash affected each of the different adults I knew. I wanted to know about these things. Even at that age, I was an investigator.

What I got from the stories of these elders was a richness of texture that seemed lacking in the then present time. These were people who wanted to forge ahead in a new way after the restraints they’d felt as a result of the depression and the war. They were upwardly mobile – and in that, they were spreading throughout the country as companies began the “transferring” trend that tore extended families apart and sent us hither and yon. They were making the money to afford better houses, nicer cars, and to give us kids the things they never had. But in the midst of all of this, we lost the soulful connection to one another. Generations began to split up. As my aunt and uncle were transferred to a city far away, our weekly get togethers were no more. The grandparents were off on social ventures, and again – the fabric was weakened because we didn’t have that special bonding experience that requires time together and attention.

By the time the 60s came about, everyone was scattering. The children of the depression babies were now entering teenage years with a common theme that parents had unwittingly instilled. “Me-ism.” The majority in this new generation did not have to go to work early to help contribute to the family support. This generation didn’t even have that many responsibilities. The parents wanted to shield us from the harshness they’d endured, but in the shielding, they robbed us of feeling that we belonged and were part of something bigger that required our contribution.

Saving people from character building is not always saving them. Sometimes it causes a feeling of disenfranchisement or entitlement. And we see how these seeds planted by well meaning parents has reseeded and produced secondary and third generations of people who don’t feel responsible for anyone other than themselves. And even then – with our attitude that everyone else is responsible but us – individual accountability is questionable.

KJ