THE OLDER BOOMER - THE ACTIVIST - 1946 TO 1955 - Revised

OLDER BOOMERS/ACTIVISTS - REVISED AND UPDATED...again

Recently I wrote an essay: BOOMER P.J. O'ROURKE (and I) WRITE ABOUT THE BABY BOOMERS

I mentioned that I have loved the work of P.J. O’Rourke for many years now and once had the honour of hearing him speak at a Toronto University. I also said that I was sure that I had read most, if not all of his books and enjoyed his 2014 book: THE BABY BOOM – How It Got That Way And It Wasn’t My Fault And I’ll Never Do It Again, as well.  

We, of the group called The Baby Boom – were born within the 25 year period between 1946 and 1964 – numbered 75 Million in America. P.J. says that each of us are alike, insofar as, each of us is unusual. 

In this new book he went on to designate and differentiate between the different groups roughly by the years they were born. There are four main groups in his book: The Seniors, The Juniors, The Sophomore’s and The Freshman. He goes on to describe those we know who represent these groups.

The Seniors among us were born in the late 1940’s a group which who P.J. says he called ‘somewhat tethered to the previous generation’, but who were also, he feels, on the ‘bow wave’ of the Boomers “I have to be me” Mantra. He says Hillary Clinton and Cheech Martin and P.J. himself, would be considered Seniors. I understood the stradling of two generations because the upbringing this group receive and the way they were taught and disciplined reflected the way it had always been done in the past. However, things were about to radically change, forever. This group, in many ways, will always straddle both generations even though they were the ones who catalyzed most of the changes we all live with today, particularly socially and culturally.

The Juniors were born in the early 50’s, just in time to grow up hearing ‘What’s the matter with Kids today’ as a Mantra. I remember it well. There even was a song with this title in a movie. We saw those slightly older than us doing things differently than before. We also saw our parents making changes to their lives and to ours. By the time John Kennedy was elected, in 1960 we were told a new era had begun. Among other things, because he did not like hats, many people stopped wearing them as well. With new music which we soon made completely our own, changes were definitely in the works. 

P.J. feels that the Juniors are the group that pursued the notions, whims and fancies of the Senior group with greater intensity. Some ended up barefoot with 'flowers in their hair' having gone to San Francisco and some even to Haight-Ashbury. Nevertheless, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were part of this group (both were born in 1955). They never accepted the ties that even the Beatles wore before them.

It has been suggested that older Boomers should also be 're-labelled' to reflect their concern and activism about i.e. Civil rights, the Vietnam War and the struggles for Women's rights.

Personally speaking, and that is the only way Boomers speak, P.J. feels that we were born into a pretty good life. He, as a Senior Boomer talks about many of the good things that post War prosperity brought to it's new generation. 

Generally though, most of us don’t reflect often on how different life was before our group was born. Like most people, we are too busy living our lives to think about the fact that ‘The Times They Were A-Changin’*. There have however, been considerable changes to differentiate us from earlier generations, and they go far beyond hats and ties.

Some of the differences P.J. notices among the generation before and the generations after our own massive cohort, are important ones. 

When P.J. mentions Racial Segregation, although this was not something we thought about as much in Canada, some of us saw it in the United States. Those of us who had been to Detroit were shocked to hear that Rioters had burned down parts of central Detroit in the early 1960’s.

The Vietnam War, to some of us meant, among other things a couple of years where boys/men our age were Drafted into the Military based upon their Birthday. For a year or two those Drafted were chosen by a Lottery of Birthdates.

The Vietnam War, also meant that some guys came to Canada A.W.O.L. from the military or, as what was called ‘Draft Dodgers’. Some of us, knew former Vietnam Veterans and also knew, ‘Draft Dodgers’, who were ‘pardoned’, by a later President.

I remember watching the movie “Across the Universe” which uses Beatles music throughout to illustrate the activist period of the 1960’s. However, even the youngest Beatle is older than the Boomers.

If you were born in 1946, as the oldest Boomers were, you have now reached the age of 68. If you are a Man, you have grey hair and/or may also a grey pony tail, if your hair is still long. You may also now wear a grey beard of varying lengths and design, although very few of you did when you were younger. Given that Men do not throw clothes away often, you may still have the Jeans you wore in the 60’s. You may still wear them too.

If you are a Woman on the other hand, some of us may still have long hair and still wear (or have again begun to wear) loose long skirts and some form of Birkenstock footwear. Your hair may or may not be grey. In fact, you hair may be brown or blonde, but usually not multi coloured. It may also still be similar in style to whatever way you wore it when you were growing up. You may now be a ‘Cougar’ although we only heard of them publicly for the first time in 2007 during Oceans 13, with some apology) and perhaps this is more a younger Boomer (Generation Jones) phenomenon - Diane Lane in Under a Tuscan Sky and Courtney Cox on the television hit series. a few years ago this would not have been admired or appreciated.

We can’t say that there was only a Generation Gap with our Parents. There are actually one or more generation gaps among Boomers. One of the gaps is actually chronological because of the 25 year span from 1946 to 1964 of the Boomers, making many Senior and Junior Boomers, parents of younger Boomers. Not surprisingly, people with that much of an age gap between them would naturally view the world differently. 

The oldest Freshmen, most of whom were born in that late 1950's or early 1960's before 1964 usually, I think, consider the older Boomers really old. To them, I think most of the older Boomers, probably seem old. To some of them we seem to be interested in, and probably are only interesting to, our own ‘generation’. Not cohort; Generation. However, once you realize that many of our fellow older Boomers are, or could be, the Parents, of these youngest Boomers, it becomes easier to not take this personally. 

Because of the vast numbers of the Boomers, recently the group born between 1955 and 1964 (to even perhaps 1969) should be considered separately. To this end, they have been relabelled, Generation Jones. 

It has also been suggested that older Boomers should also be 're-labelled' to reflect their concern and activism about i.e. civil rights, Vietnam War and the struggles for women's rights.

In the same way that perhaps we were sceptical about our father's insistence that they used to walk 5 miles (each way) to get to school each day, Younger Boomers seem as skeptical about the idealistic optimism that change was possible, with which I describe my group. 

I hear some of my younger siblings say they think I talk about the past a lot and especially about friends and family members they never knew.  

Something so easily remembered by us – that there was Music in the air wherever we went, seems to be dismissed by them as absurd. Besides, they also don’t care for some of my music any more than I do for theirs.

Nevertheless, I persevere in trying to explain that we were many individuals who nevertheless were united in wanting to change the World for the better. I don't know whether the younger kids believe me about this either. 

To Older Boomers, these younger ones weren't interested in these things but produced innovation in technology and two of the most famous 'computer geek' pioneers. Perhaps as Generation Jones, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates will now be in their group and no longer that of P.J.'s Junior Boomers. 

Many Older Boomers, still sometimes feel that our younger siblings, got the benefits of the societal changes our group demanded and the improved civil and social life we forced to change and gave them as an established way of life. 

Meanwhile, we sometimes feel they blame our Cohort for what they consider harder lives. I also think that some of them feel they missed out on something. That some of them seem to believe it is somehow our fault that the world isn’t perfect, rankles a bit. Still others among them, seem to think that they are worse off than their Gen X or Y younger siblings.

Whether they believe me/us or not, big changes in all of our lives had lasting effects that have been incorporated into our society today.

For example, Women, of my generation, were perhaps, for the first time in history, no longer expected to be stuck/stranded for life to an abusive or uncongenial spouse. Improved social services and a better education enabled us to earn an income of our own and be able financially, to leave a loveless marriage, if necessary.

At the same time, many Women were accepted in the workplace as having ‘a Career’. Many personally expected to want, or need to continue working after Marriage and while raising a Family. This is an ongoing way of life that did not exist even at the time when either the Senior or Junior Boomers were still in School. Though the song I AM WOMAN by Helen Reddy, didn't come out until 1975, Women making changes to how society viewed us, long preceded the song. The words 'Male Chauvinist Pig' entered the lexicon in 1965-1970 but the struggle against it began long before.

Perhaps as a result of both sexes remaining in the work force, increased opportunities for Women were made possible, particularly as economic times worsened. Careers opportunities became available in areas which had previously not been as welcoming to females as they later became, including Finance, Medicine, Engineering, and Law.

Ability became more important than Gender when the demands of the work force became based on results. The Two Income Family became not only desirable, but often a necessity.

Meanwhile, among our Parents generation, we could not help but notice that our long married Parents were coming to accept that their own Children’s or their Friend’s Children were now possibly living together before Marriage or Divorcing. It wasn’t just the times that were a-changin’, but the laws as well.

The Parents, many of whom remain married to this day, remembered the ‘Big Wedding’ and a traditional special gift to give the couple a ‘Good Start’ in life. However, often only a few years later, the couple were Separated or Divorced, sometimes with young Children to take care of alone. Ours was perhaps the first generation to financially as well as, with the enhanced support of social services and even our own families, to be able to leave a very bad marriage.  

As I mentioned yesterday, last year I wrote about the modern couple. I felt dismayed that other than financially, breakups had now become so frequent that the Law today appears to care more about who has a greater ability to pay for support for any Children or minors than anything else, when a marriage is dissolved. The emotional cost to the Man or Woman, or the Children, seems to have become almost incidental as long as the financial split is orderly. 

The consequences and/or long term implications will, I think take a while longer to understand more fully than at this time when only a couple of generations have been able to dissolve their marriages with less strain or stigma than in past generations.

Perhaps complete trust has always been difficult. Today, however, we could say that, it isn’t about not trusting anybody over 30, as it was in the early 60’s. Today perhaps, a relationship might begin only when a great deal of caution and mistrust are overcome rather than having begun with friendly openness and repartee.

Nevertheless, both despite and because of the influence of this large group of (older and younger) Boomers, we live in a different world. 

The reality that more than one generation is actually involved in the Boomer period, explains why various among us may be living very different lives and actually have very different priorities in those lives.

While it is sometimes difficult to reflect on your own time with any degree of impartiality, P.J. O'Rourke makes some cogent observations of his own about the larger changes which have occurred during the time the Boomers have come of age.

There have been fewer dead in the Wars during our time span; however, some horrible wars and genocides have still occurred. 

Encouragingly, people living in Extreme poverty; those living on less than $1.25 a day was 52% of people in the developing world in 1981. By 1990, P.J. says it was 43% and by 2008, the last year of complete data by the World Bank, it was 22%. Although this means 1.29 billion people are still starving and in ragged misery (to quote P.J.) that is still a vast improvement from 1981.

Ideally, I am somehow still idealistic enough that I might like to spend the $50 Billion that Bjorn Lomberg** says could make a big difference to the world and see if it worked. We have enough knowledge of history to realize that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ and that the 20^th century failures left a society with perhaps the greatest losses of life in history. In the course of their experimentation with the perfectibility of mankind, many countries encountered others with conflicting cravings for power and influence over others.*** Perhaps knowing that the State of the World really is improving, may have to suffice to encourage us of the Boomer generation.

The 'whole world' may have been watching. Our parents may have wondered what was the matter with kids today. We now have seen divorces in our own generation that might have not occurred in previous generations, however, bad the marriages. 

Nevertheless, we live, in our own time period and face our own changes and challenges to live with and adapt to. Perhaps it has always been thus throughout history. 

As most of the W.W.II generation passes away and even some of the older Boomers seem fairly old to the rest of us, we can, at the very least say, we raised our voices and made changes happen to the world...and many things in the world have changed, but also improved because we did.

 *Bob Dylan – The Times they are A-Changin’ (1963/1964)

**Bjorn Lomberg – How to Spend $50 Billion to make the World a Better Place
***Robert Conquest – Notes on a Ravaged Century

DATES OF BIRTH OF SOME OLDER BOOMERS:

1946 - Bill Clinton, Cher, Dolly Parton, Donald Trump, George W. Bush and Steven Spielberg.
1947 - Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Letterman, Elton John, Hillary Clinton, O.J. Simpson, Stephen King, Tom Clancy.
1948 - Al Gore, Billy Crystal, Donna Summer.
1949 - Bruce Springsteen, Hank Williams Jr., Meryl Streep, Vera Wang and Wolfgang Puck.
1950 - Fran Lebowitz, Jay Leno, Martin Short, Richard Branson.
1951 - Al Franken, Rush Limbaugh, Sting, Tommy Hilfiger.


HAVE SOME FUN AT THIS SITE: https://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/mmi/publications/Profiles/mmi-older-boomer-demographic-profile.pdf

Some statistical information about the Baby Boom found at: http://www.socialmarketing.org/newsletter/features/generation2.htm:

Boomers I or The Baby Boomers
Born: 1946-1954
Coming of Age: 1963-1972
Age in 2004: 50-58
Current Population: 33 million
For a long time the Baby Boomers were defined as those born between 1945 and 1964. That would make the generation huge (71 million) and encompass people who were 20 years apart in age. It didn’t compute to have those born in 1964 compared with those born in 1946. Life experiences were completely different. Attitudes, behaviors and society were vastly different. In effect, all the elements that help to define a cohort were violated by the broad span of years originally included in the concept of the Baby Boomers. The first Boomer segment is bounded by the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations, the Civil Rights movements and the Vietnam War. Boomers I were in or protested the War. Boomers 2 or the Jones Generation missed the whole thing.

Boomers I had good economic opportunities and were largely optimistic about the potential for America and their own lives, the Vietnam War notwithstanding.

TOP 10 BOOMER MOVIES (according to Oliver Stone)
1. The Graduate 1967
2. Easy Rider 1969
3. A Clockwork Orange 1971
4. Godfather I - 1972 and Godfather II - 1974
5. Jaws 1975
6. All the President's Men 1976
7. Annie Hall 1977
8. Apocalypse Now 1979
9. Kramer v.s. Kramer 1979
10. Reds 1981

These definitely, whatever their year, seem to me to be Older Boomer movies and I imagine that 'Generation Jones' (Younger Boomers) would not relate to most of these either in their content or their 'message'.