2005-12-02 - 9:18 a.m.
Have I talked about this before? I dunno.
With my mom coming to stay with us and all, I’ve started thinking about the issues we’re going to encounter, which led me to think about our generational differences, which led me further to considering the why or what is different about my generation and hers.
I’m sure that what I’m about to write is hardly profound and is mostly inaccurate, and incomplete, but this is my damn blog and I’m going to write what I’m thinking about, like it or not!
(Hmpfff!)
When I think about change in our country, I divide history into two parts: BN & AN (Before Nixon and After Nixon). Not to be vulgar, but I like to describe Nixon as the president that burst the nation’s cherry. Nixon and the things he did were a fundamental part of a time in our nation when monumental changes took place that would forever change the way we (American’s) view life and the world.
My mother is a hard-line “BN” generationalist – though she doesn’t know it (I don’t think). Prior to the romancing and subsequent bursting of aforementioned cherry, the world (in America) was a black and white place: Good guys wore white hats; bad guys wore black hats. Elvis WAS rock-n-Roll. James Dean WAS cool. Marilyn Monroe WAS sex. Petroleum jelly was Vaseline. You believed in your country, the flag, and trusted the government without question. The president was (virtually) infallible.
It was a time of icons, a time of trust and belief, and a time in which you knew who you were and everyone else was, because everyone was well defined, everyone was archetypal in some way - he’s the Jewish kid (therefore greedy), she’s fat Alice (because she was fat), Pollack’s were dumb (and you could say Pollack)…
…political correctness did not exist.
There was great television show that illustrated the change, the burst – All in the Family. You had Archie Bunker (Carol O’Connor) on the BN side and Michael 'Meathead' Stivic (Rob Reiner) on the AN side and it was a perfect depiction of the changes that were taking place, using these amalgamate characters to represent the generations.
After the BB (Big-Burst, which it shall be named) things shifted drastically; suddenly you couldn’t trust your government, you could burn the flag, and the president was a joker in a suit. Rock-n-Roll became British, and Cajun, and before you know it there are 5 million categories of music – 90% of which the general populous has never heard of. Cool became rad, awesome, tubular, bitchen, phat, the bomb, the shizzle…who knows what it is now or who truly represents it. As for sex – it’s everywhere. Marilyn is a Manson now.
Good guys often wear black.
There are no more icons. No one is well defined – there are generations of people crying out to know who they are. We’re all American -__________ (Fill in the blank).
Everything changed.
Is it better? Is it worse? I don’t know…and I can live with that…I’m just her to commentate on the big game.
What I do know is that the gap doesn’t exist just theoretically or philosophically – it exist physically between my mother and I. Every time we exchange words and ideas, they have to cross this broad gulf of space. Every time we try and relate on a topic, or choose a dish to eat, or decide how to vote, or what car to drive, or decide where to live – we encounter this barrier.
Do you experience this too? Can you relate? And…are you trying to do something about it? Are you trying to understand the why?
Me…I’m building a bridge…one word at a time.
