“Hope I die before I get old.”
I suppose it was inevitable that my generation would be the one absolutely obsessed with the idea of aging. After all, from the mid 1950s onward, Madison Avenue treated us as if we were the first generation ever to be young and energetic.
We were the first generation ever to grow up in widespread prosperity and the first one to have advertising aimed at us.
In fact, one of the things that really cemented our feelings as separate came in 1964, when Jack Weinberg of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement told us to “never trust anyone over 30.”
I was 14 then.
Next week I’ll be 75.
I’m not even sure I trust myself anymore.
I didn’t die before I got old.
Thinking back on it now makes me sad. We really thought we were different and in fact, we had the opportunity to be different. As I said earlier, we were the first American generation to grow up in widespread prosperity.
It wasn’t as if we were rich, but just a generation earlier than when we were little in the 1950s, a third of American families had no income at all and went to bed hungry most of the time.
It was called the Great Depression, and that and World War II were the greatest influences on our parents’ generation. I feel like as they aged, particularly once we were adults, they thought less of us because we had it easy as children.
So whether they caused it or we caused it or it was a combination of the two, suddenly we had something called a Generation Gap.
Of course it was later in the 1960s when things got really wild — in the streets.
American International’s “Wild in the Streets posited a world where kids in their twenties got the voting age lowered to 14 and the mandatory retirement age lowered to 30.
Rock-star-turned-President Max Frost explained why that made sense.
“I have nothing against our current President… that’s like running against my own grandfather. I mean, what do you ask a 60-year-old man?… You ask him if he wants his wheelchair FACING the Sun, or facing AWAY from the Sun. But running the country? FORGET IT, babies!”
Yep, we got old. If you’re of a certain age on Facebook, the algorithim never stops showing you clickbait posts telling you how old you are if you recognize these celebrities from the Sixties or these items that have become obsolete or these clothes people don’t wear anymore.
It works the other way too. In my late teens and early twenties, not only did I know the names of all the rock groups, I could usually name the members and who played each instrument. Not just John, Paul, Geoprge and Ringo either. I could name Doors and Kinks, Rascals and Who and a host of others.
Not anymore.
I’m not sure I could name any hit songs from the year just ended, let alone the individuals or groups who performed them. I remember reading once that the first step toward losing touch with pop culture is not knowing who’s making the music. The second step is not knowing who the movie stars are and the third is not knowing the TV stars.
One young star I really like is Amy Adams.
Mike, she’s 50 years old.
How about Amanda Seyfried?
Today is her 39th birthday.
Lily James?
Getting better, but she’s still 35.
So you see what I mean. I always liked Cybill Shepherd and I think “Moonlighting” is one of the best TV shows of the 1980s, but she is just two months younger than I am.
I made a rule starting in 2020 that I wouldn’t vote for a presidential candidate who was older than was, but I had to break that rule right away because both of them were old and one was Donald Trump.
I’m hoping 2028 will be the year that Baby Boomers disappear from the presidential scene. Republicans will probably nominate J.D. Vance, aka Hillbilli Vanilli, who will be 44. He not only isn’t a boomer, he isn’t even Gen X. Democrats who look like contenders will be Gretchen Whitmer (57 in ’28), Josh Shapiro (55), Gavin Newsom (61) and Pete Buttigieg (46). None of them are boomers and Buttigieg is a millennial).
I hope I die before they get old.