Born From The Late 1920's To The mid-40's, We Exist As A Very Special Age Group.
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Born in the late 1920's to
the mid-40's, we exist as a very special age group. We are the smallest
group of children born since the early 1900s. We are the last
generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war
and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily
lives for years. We are the last to
remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves. We saved tin foil and
poured fat into tin cans. We saw cars up on blocks
because tires weren't available. We can remember milk
being delivered to our house early in the morning and placed in the “milk
box” on the porch. We are the last to see
the gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors whose sons died in
the War. We saw the 'boys' home
from the war, build their little houses. We are the last
generation who spent childhood without television; instead, we imagined what
we heard on the radio. As we all like to brag,
with no TV, we spent our childhood "playing outside”. There was no little league. There was no city
playground for kids. The lack of television in
our early years meant, for most of us, that we had little real understanding
of what the world was like. On Saturday afternoons,
the movies gave us newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons. Telephones were one to a house,
often shared (party lines) and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares
about privacy). Computers were called
calculators, they were hand cranked; typewriters were driven by pounding
fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon. The 'INTERNET’ and
‘GOOGLE’ were words that did not exist. N newspapers and
magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on our radio in
the evening by Gabriel Heater and later Paul Harvey. As we grew up, the
country was exploding with growth. The G.I. Bill gave
returning veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to
grow. V A loans fanned a
housing boom. Pent up demand coupled with
new installment payment plans opened many factories for work. New highways would bring
jobs and mobility. The veterans joined civic
clubs and became active in politics. The radio network
expanded from 3 stations to thousands. Our parents were suddenly
free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw
themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined. We weren't neglected,
but we weren't today's all-consuming family focus. They were glad we played
by ourselves until the street lights came on. They were busy discovering
the post war world. We entered a world of
overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where we were welcomed, enjoyed
ourselves and felt secure in our future though depression poverty was deeply
remembered. Polio was still a crippler. We came of age in the
50s and 60s. The Korean War was a dark passage in
the early 50s and by mid-decade school children were ducking under desks for
Air-Raid training. Russia built the “Iron
Curtain” and China became Red China . Eisenhower sent the first 'Army
Advisers' to Vietnam. Castro took over in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power. We are the last
generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our
homeland. The war was over and the cold war, terrorism, “global
warming”, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease Only our generation can remember both a
time of great war, and a time when our world was secure and full of bright
promise and plenty. Lived through both. We grew up at the best
possible time, a time when the world was getting better. We are "The Last
Ones." More than 99% of us are either retired or deceased, and we feel
privileged to have “ lived in the best of times"! |
