Hurlyburly

Been there and done that? Love the Dennis Hopper ads about hanging on to your dreams? Still love the music and all the folks who are hanging in there? But do you ever feel those pearly gates getting closer and start to think that it's too late, that we missed the boat, that we're on the way out, that Georgie-Porgie made us cry and that with the upcoming presidential election and our aging bodies and minds- this isn't shaping up to be any Age of Aquarius?

The new generations, our offspring, mind you, are doing fine. They've outdone us in certain ways, they've had the fruits of our labors to spur them on. But they're curious about us. They (occasionally) want us to share what we know- especially from the safe distance of a blog, and not when we have them trapped in our car.

We remember when cyberspace was just a dream, the next generation is immersed in it. We sought to be authentic and to change the world, they wonder what exactly we mean by that. Most of them will never know what it was like to start things from scratch the way we did: to learn reading, writing, 'rithmetic, get a classical education, to think in broad terms of distinct civilizations and cultures. Social policies have subtly altered some of the most fundamental learning processes and are almost surely affecting evolutionary patterns. Genealogy charts are interesting, but to what end? It's a brave new world, a glorious mish-mash. There's been a mutation in mankind, don't you think? It's hard to define, but whatever it is, it would show up on a graph a million years from now.

We're different from the dignified WWII veterans and Holocaust survivors who have sat and reminisced for Steven Spielberg and other documentarians- We are Vietnam-era, issue-sensitized, drug-culture survivors. It definitely doesn't have the same ring. Nowhere near as many WWII vets ended up drug-addled and overly tattooed on Harleys or blank-eyed in wheelchairs at Saturday flea markets. God knows, many dignified Vietnam vets have exemplary, successful and fulfilling lives and may drive Harleys and work flea markets, but you know of the ones who didn’t feel like heroes, and didn’t succeed. The unfortunate stereotype is out there. And how do you think our Iraq veterans will fare as the years unfold? If the scenes and stories of neglected veterans at Walter Reed Hospital are any indication, we're not learning from our mistakes.

For all its strengths, our boomer generation has been strident and self-righteous at times. Some of us got cheapened and weakened - albeit temporarily-by our culture, by some of our shrill and misguided liberal policies, by the assassination of our beautiful young leaders, and by a relaxation into faithlessness and a consequent lack of discipline that nearly lost us the battle of our lives. But we had the best music, didn't we? And so many of our musicians are still kickin' and inspiring new generations. Wasn't it Mick Jagger who once said that people over forty may as well die? If so, he sure changed his mind about that! He's struttin' and frettin' his hours upon the stage, mighty strong and alive as he nears 65, doing us all proud.

Youth won't marginalize us if we use their tools to go on helping to broaden their worlds. We can still leave so much behind, even just sitting at our computers- whether we have blood-pressure meds and anti-coagulants on the shelf, or running shoes and turmeric. Step into the hurly-burly.