Duck, Baby Boomers

I started reading "The Baby Boom - How It Got That Way And It Wasn't My Fault And I'll Never Do It Again."

By P.J. O'Rourke.

First and foremost when I cracked the cover I came face to face with his autograph and dedication to me. He comes into The Asylum from time to time. I am bold enough to have initiated conversation with the man, which culminated in his autographing of the book.

He signed it as I asked him to (after chuckling a bit): "To Joe. Stop underachieving! P.J.O'Rourke. Peterborough, NH. 6/8/14."

I should have that page bronzed and hang it up over this very computer.

The book is kind of an indictment or commentary or criticism or historical record of my generation.

Done very much tongue in cheek, but with a healthy dose of truth cloaked in sarcasm, as is Mr. O'Rourke's way.

Very cool so far.

A couple of paragraphs hit me right off the bat.

"The youngest Baby Boomers, born in the last year when anybody thought it was hip to like Lyndon Johnson, are turning fifty. Those of us who were born when postwar birthrates were highest, even before Ike was liked, won't (statistics tell us) have to wait as long for death as we had to wait to get laid.
We'd be sad about this if we weren't too busy remarrying younger wives, reviving careers that hit glass ceilings when children arrived, and renewing prescriptions for drugs that keep us from being sad. And we'll never retire. We can't. The mortgage is underwater. We're in debt up to the Rogaine for the kids' college education. And it serves us right - we're the generation who insisted that a passion for living should replace working for one."

There's a lot of truth in there, but I am not going to deal with it. Not now, anyway.

What really hit me was an observation he made comparing our lives as children, specifically our relationship with our parents, to the relationship we had with them as teenagers and beyond.

Contrasting the innocent love we had for our parents when we were young, to the nasty way we trashed everything about them when the sixties ethos dominated our lives.

Strangely enough an immediate image popped into my head. That image was of myself, my brother and my mother standing on our second floor porch waiting for my father to drive home in his brand new Cadillac.

He owned a number of them. They were cool. My favorite was a dark brown one with a tan roof. That car was beautiful.

I wasn't happy when he switched over to a Mercedes. The caddies were cooler. Although I liked the way the Mercedes drove. Like a race car.

Yes. My father allowed me and my brother to drive his luxury cars. Pretty cool, huh?

Anyway, what came back to me was the feeling of pride I experienced as my father's car came into view. Pride at the fact that he could afford a Caddie. Pride at the beauty and luxury of the car.

And genuine excitement to see that baby roll into the driveway.

That was also right around the time that I began to hate my parents life style. To criticize it and vow never to live it.

Of course I turned around and lived almost exactly the lifestyle they did, minus the money.

Anyway, in a short period of time I went from pride to anger, and the relationship kind of stayed there for the remainder.

The relationship between us was always strained, even when I got married and moved out. My parents were demanding, and they did not like it when we stopped visiting every Sunday (1 and 1/2 hour drive one way) and on every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Seemed like our relationship never really survived those turbulent and formative years of the sixties.

That of course, is a shame. And I think where O'Rourke is going with this is that we weren't really fair to our parents.

Probably true.

I'm glad my sons did not rebel against Carol and me as openly as I rebelled against my parents.

That would have hurt.

Just as I am sure I hurt my parents.