The rugged group of Americans who survived the Great Depression and won World War II is often referred to as the “Greatest Generation.” They were immediately followed by my generation, the Baby Boomers.
I asked a fellow Boomer if chronologically coming on the heels of the Greatest Generation made us the second greatest generation. His reply was, “Not even close.”
Regardless of that sentiment, I’m still proud of our accomplishments. We started transforming society at a young age by spending the Greatest Generation’s money, creating the most prosperous economy in history.
We are more safety conscious than they were. We pioneered seat belts and air bags. In some states, we banned indoor smoking. At the same time, we promoted legalizing weed, reasoning that it is less harmful than alcohol.
We relaxed America’s dress code. Although, we draw the line at wearing jammies to the store. We changed America’s radio station to rock ’n’ roll. Some of us still wait in the car to hear the end of a song.
We came up with the synthesizer and the incredibly long bass solo. We also invented the internet. We promoted entrepreneurship. America has fallen to 15th in the list of happiest countries but Boomers are still ranked in the top 10.
We made America less color-discriminatory. We fought discrimination against women. We popularized the use of “Ms.” and stopped calling women “ladies.” We eased prejudice against the LGBTQIA community.
We (temporarily) ended the Cold War and oversaw the end of Apartheid. We believe in political activism. We protested wars, beginning with Viet Nam and continuing to the present day.
We invented DNA fingerprinting and other forensic tools to combat crime. There would be no “CSI” shows without us. We also watched Columbo solve murders the old-fashioned way.
We (temporarily) increased life expectancy, until the pandemic knocked it back down. We invented the Segway. Some of us can still ride a bike.
But enough about our glorious past. These days we can carry on face-to-face conversations, without glancing down at our phones. We call rather than text and use complete sentences in our emails. We love volunteering and serving where we’re needed.
We begin conversations with quaint expressions like: “I heard on the radio … I saw in the paper … In this book I’m reading …” We still get photographs printed. We look up words in the dictionary.
We know how to read maps, although GPS is destroying that ability. We take longhand notes. When it comes to reading, we prefer printed matter to scanning screens.
We started a jogging fad that continues to grow in popularity. We invented touch football, wiffleball and Ultimate Frisbee. We sparked a short-lived tennis boom until we discovered pickleball. We embraced soccer and are avid fans of women’s basketball.
If it wasn’t for us, there’d be no relaxed-fit jeans. There would be no four-dollar cups of burnt-tasting coffee. We also unfortunately invented fast food, drive-thru windows and diet pop.
We can push a stroller or hang with our grandkids at the park, without gabbing on the phone. We don’t text and drive. Some of us still handwrite and mail letters.
We rejected materialism in our youth — with many refusing to sell out to “The Man” … for an entire summer. We were the first generation in a century to care about the environment.
We only had 2.1 children per family, so we didn’t start our own Baby Boom. But we made sure that our kids had good self-esteem and a strong sense of entitlement.
Sorry about that last one.
