I Bet You Remember When…

As we close out 2023, it is probably as good a time as any to reflect on dates that have shaped our generation and the one that went before us and the one that is following us. For those born in the late 20’s, maybe the onset of the Great Depression on “Black Monday” October 29, 1929, would be a benchmark. Certainly, December 7, 1941, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and our entry into World War II is another. Maybe the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki also resonates with those who were born too late to be members of Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation. 

That brings us to the Boomers born roughly between 1946 and 1964. We older members of that group recall that May 1961 morning when astronaut Alan Shepherd was the first American to travel into space or maybe February 20, 1962, when John Glenn circled the earth.  We all remember where we were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.  It’s been 60 years, but it might as well have been yesterday.  I was a senior at Hinsdale Township High School when over the loudspeaker, we found out Kennedy had been shot.  Thirty minutes later, we were told he had died.  As if this wasn’t traumatic enough, two days later on live TV the handcuffed Lee Harvey Oswald was led through a crowd of officials when Jack Ruby lunges forward, shoots and kills Oswald.

In 1968, Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were shot and killed.  Each of us might also have personal “Vietnam dates” as the war unfolded before us on the nightly news.  For me, I can clearly remember when CBS Commentator Eric Sevareid interviewed Walter Cronkite who told the nation “it was time to come home.” Shortly thereafter, President Johnson announced he would not seek reelection.  And it all happened right before our eyes.  What makes these examples stand out in the collective minds of the “fourth quarter” group is that we watched them unfold in real time on television.  The shock of seeing these events up close and personal gave them a clarity denied our predecessors.

More recent generations were included when classrooms around the United States on January 28, 1986, could see the first teacher travel into space.  Then 73 seconds into its flight, the Challenger broke apart. And again we saw it “live.”  The clarion call of later generations clearly has to be what has become known simply as “9-11.”  Who can ever forget seeing the planes slicing into the Twin Towers, the explosions, people running through the streets to escape crumbling buildings. 

Diane and I were visiting friends Michael and Judy Mason in Florida.  The television was on, but we weren’t paying that much attention until every channel had bulletins scrolling along the bottom with “special alert,” “breaking news,” or “warnings” filling up the screens.  The date was January 6, 2021—a date that changed American political history forever.  More recently on February 24, 2022, we began watching the war in Ukraine take place, again before our eyes.  

These dates, as they relate to each generation, define us, shape us, bring us together, and set us apart from those born both before and after us.  Boomers grew up after WW II and were shaped by Vietnam.  We have lived in nine different decades. We used an operator to make a phone call, bought vinyl records, and watched black and white tv.  We actually wrote letters to people and were here when the computer age took off.  Early Boomers’ friends had polio, meningitis, measles, mumps, and other diseases since eradicated. I had a Schwinn bike with balloon tires and collected baseball cards. I could actually make enough money with a summer job to pay for most of a year of school at a public university. 

These days are long gone. I can’t even begin to understand the complexities facing the youth and middle-aged Americans of today in terms of technology, world unrest, and now domestic turmoil on multiple levels. I tell myself that I’ll be gone before some of these nightmare scenarios become a reality, but my children and grandchildren won’t and that concerns and worries me. What is to become of them. We have so much international turmoil across the universe; you can “pick your continent” as to where a war or terrorist act will break out next. Today it’s Israel, Palestine, and Hamas and in the United States we can’t even seem to agree that yes, Hamas is rampant and full of terrorists and thugs at best. At home, and I won’t take sides, we are incredibly dysfunctional and chaotic, and some folks don’t even believe we should continue to have three separate but equal branches of government. What did I just type? How stupid is that?  

As I take stock of all this, a couple of things have dawned on me. The time has come to reach out to those I love and tell them so. Diane and I find ourselves focusing more and more on our kids, grandkids, and immediate family which now consists of Paul and Marsha Paulsen and Ruth and Steve Drew, Diane’s siblings. 

As our respective and collective Fourth Quarters move on, we are moving down the field with less time on the clock to pursue our dreams and maybe even an ambition or two.  It is time to begin thinking about moving closer to one of our three children as Father/Mother Time is there looking over our proverbial shoulders. This is not imminent but still as we age, it’s there and needs to be addressed and I’m confident the same is true for many of you.

Yes, we have immediate access to keep in touch with others.  The internet has opened our ability to connect with email, texts, cell phones, FaceTime, videos, photos, Instagram, and web pages to name a few platforms.  During the recent pandemic when there was an unprecedented time of isolation, technology afforded us a way to keep in touch.  However, with all the quick access to so many, are we closer?  We “Fourth Quarter” individuals certainly will never forget those dates in our lives when current events flashed across our tv screens.  I wonder what will be next?