How did it happen that I got to sixty? I'm grateful that I am here, of course. I have a wonderful life and I know the greatness of God. I live with many reminders of how I've been blessed with family and friends and health.
I guess most everyone who ages has some similar take on this. I like to think we Baby Boomers are unique because we were so unique back then. We changed the world, right? Or at least our world. Our generation, after all, affected many changes in society. Some of them were good. Some of them were bad. But we didn't just sit idly by or expect that our parents would hand us everything. In fact, things weren't as much of an issue for us.
So now that I'm sixty I am asserting the right to speak like an old fogey. I've seen those lists online of things that were true in the fifties and sixties so I'm adding a few of my own. Today we say "back in the day" but back in the day we said "in my day...". So in my day:
- Newlyweds didn't expect to have it all at once. They moved into small, cramped apartments with what they could afford. They didn't enter into marriage with a brand new home beautifully furnished with two new cars in their 2 car garage.
- Tattoos were reserved for sailors and the occasional jailbird.
- Children played outside without fences. When my mother wanted me she'd go out on the back porch and yell my name. That's how I knew it was supper time.
- When I was a kid my friends didn't text me or email me or IM me or even call me. They would show up at the front door and yell "Hello for Lin-da".
- Nobody bought metal wallets to protect their credit cards because we had few uses of credit and very little of that type of theft. If we couldn't afford something we didn't buy it. If we really had our eye on something and we were afraid it might disappear, we did "Lay-aways". The store put your stuff in storage and you paid what you could over time until you had paid for it. No interest. No charges. Now a thing of the past but it was very useful.
- At least in our house, things like potato chips and soda and candy were reserved for special occasions. And I think they tasted better when they weren't so readily available.
Now I'm not naive. I know we've had many improvements since then. This very ability to blog, for example, is far better than a diary. MP3s beat vinyl records by a long shot. Smart Phones are the best. Just living without a simple mobile phone seems frightening (although we had less to be frightened of). DVRs, Pausing live TV, rewinding and capturing moments. I'll take that over UHF. I'll take my digital cameras any day over those nasty rolls of film that had to be developed. I'll take Facebook over waiting days and days for snail mail from a friend who lives in another country. Okay, maybe I'm not so sure about the Facebook thing. I mean, I did have magical times whenever I got a letter from my pen pal.
But all those improvements are still mostly things. What I value most is love. And in that regard I am rich. In my youth I was bombarded by messages about free love and making love and not war. We thought love was the answer. And maybe it was. But the love I've come to know is deep and powerful and uncreated.
