Children of the sixties...

 

 

 

"Much can be said about the children of the sixties. Some good, some bad. However here is my take..."

There is a story which needs to be told here - and I might as well be one to give my version of it. Much has been said about today's Baby Boomers. Some refer to them as the Children of the Sixties. Or maybe the Woodstock Generation. Well confession time is due. I grew up and graduated in the sixties. Yes, I am one of them. Many of my friends did also. Is it true we mucked things up? To a degree, yes. It also true those were golden times. Golden times bequeathed to us by our parents. Times I will never forget.

Do I regret being born in that era? Not too much. However if I had in my choice, I would have been born 20 years earlier. To me, those were really the best of times. Those years, as hard as they were, were the years our folks grew up in. Those years are what formed the Greatest Generation.

The generation before ours had the World War II experience - then the experience of saving the world from tyranny. Then after the war was over, the rebuilding of Japan and Europe. The next generation (us) were all set up to live in the greatest country, with the greatest economy, built by our parents - the Greatest Generation.

Yes, I would trade my era for that generation. In a New York minute I would. But growing up in the sixties was also not that bad. I lived through an incredible amount of history. For example, much has been made about the movie Selma. I remember it clearly. JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King. I remember them also. I remember all of them being gunned down long before their time.

I remember the Apollo Program, the Gemini Program, and the Moon landing itself. I remember how close we came to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember the old style Yankees and legendary Green Bay Packers. I also remember Detroit when it was vibrant and classy. I remember how the Viet Nam War changed the country. Yes, I remember it all.

In my time as a youth, as well as a  young adult, we had fine and memorable music. Life was simple and good. During my high school experience, Friday nights in the fall were spent watching high caliber football, then going to a sock hop in the high school gym, and finally out for pizza. It was all fun, it was all innocent. No drugs, no liquor, just fun. It was a time I yearn that or our kids and grandkids could experience. Life was uncomplicated. It was going from point "A" to point "B" - as simple as that. College, service time, they were all a part of growing up. Somewhere in the middle of all that was finding your soul mate. Then getting married and having kids.

One of the reasons I relish getting together with my high school chums is simple - they also shared this experience. They shared something which is rapidly fading. Good times? Yes. Lasting times? I am afraid not. All that remains now are fading memories. Fading memories of the Children of the sixties. The generation which followed the Greatest Generation and then blazed the path for Generation Next...