Saturday, January 12, 2008

You Might Be A "Real Baby Boomer" If

If you remember the name of the girl/boy you were sleeping with when you heard Neil Armstrong speaking from the Moon...

or noticed that Stevie Wonder had ceased to be "Little"...

If you remember the Tet Offensive, and LBJ complaining that he'd lost the war cuz he'd lost Cronkite, then you're a RBB (real Baby Boomer).

If you enlisted to avoid the draft, or know what it means to have a 'deferrment...'

If you had sex with someone, in the shower, washing off the tear gas residue from being gassed by the pigs for demonstrating against the invasion of Cambodia, you're a RBB.

If you remember your draft number (hint: 1-365), or when Ram Das was still Richard Alpert, you're a RBB...

If you remember the the name of the judge who tried the Chicago Seven, and still know the name of Howdy Doody's cow...

If you cast your first presidential ballot for Nixon cuz you didn't trust Humphrey, you're a RBB...

If you watched the Watergate hearings and cheered for Sam Ervin and his Constitution,

If you saw LBJ's surgery scar on the nightly news, or saw him lift his beagle by the ears you're a RBB...

If you remember the Huntley/Brinkley Report...or Tim Buckley...or Bobby Darren...

if the first presidential election you actually remember involved Adlai Stevenson...

I was prompted to think of those thing in response to a post on PFF, in which the poster, one 'donkeytale' recited these which now follow, all of which of course are at least episodes, if not chapters, in my memory, too:
1. If you remember air raid sirens and hiding under your school desk to prepare for the inevitable nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, then you are a real baby boomer.

2. If you remember being scared shitless every time a car engine backfired during the Cuban Missile crisis, then you are a real baby boomer.

3. If you remember clearly where you were and what you were doing in elementary/middle/high school at the very the moment you first heard the news that JFK had been assassinated, then you are a real baby boomer.

4. If you watched Ed Sullivan on the three consecutive weekends that the Beatles first appeared on American TV, then you are a real baby boomer.

5. If you remember the day Sam Cooke was shot to death in LA, then you are a real baby boomer.

6. If you remember listening to the radio broadcast from Miami the night Sonny Liston refused to leave his corner for the 8th round of his first fight against "Cassius Clay," then you are a real baby boomer.

7. If you remember the assassination of Malcolm X, even if you weren't sure who he was at the time, then you are a real baby boomer.

8. If you (or a boyfriend if you were female) owned a draft card at some point during the Vietnam War, then you are a real baby boomer.

9. If you were able to lie convincingly to anyone at all that you had attended either Woodstock or Altamont, then you are a real baby boomer. {the truth: I paid the outrageous sum of $6.50 for my ticket to the Stones at the Forum in LA a few weeks before Altamont, and recall both BB King and Ike & Tina (plus the Ikettes) as being far superior entertainers and musicians}.

10.If your entire mind just went numb and never recovered after you awoke to the tragic news on your clock radio the morning after the KKKaliforniadise primary in 1968 (less than two short months after the MLK, Jr. assassination) then you are a "real" baby boomer
. My thanks to dt for this. I have a "Baby-boomer" post festering in me, because I am becoming irritated at the emerging enthusiasm to 'balance' things on what remain of the backs of we, who through no fault of our own, were born between late '45 and about '60, and are beginning to take our due retirement...

A note about generations: From some (arbitrarily) fixed point, it is the average time between birth and parenthood. Anthropologists put the number of years comprising a generation anywhere between 20 and 30. Some earlier accounts, iirc, put the number at the time between birth and fertility. This would be a considerably shorter time.

I plan to return to this presently, but I am not yet ready.

No comments: