Baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, have lived through a lot. I know. I'm a boomer. But lately I feel as if I am slowly, inexorably becoming invisible, my past experience, mistakes, awards, successes, and achievements ignored or even mocked. Labeled insignificant, judgmental, old fashioned, out of touch. Does not matter that I experienced social upheavals, watched as Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the self-conflagration of monks in Hanoi, the assassination of JFK and his brother and their funeral cavalcades, the explosions of Mt St Helens, and lived through the Korean, Vietnam, and Cold Wars, and watched the Berlin Wall fall. I was in my 30s when the computer lumbered into businesses, so huge that one mainframe filled an entire city block. I've used a telephone connected to the wall, then cordless phones (actually calling people on them); my generation dreamed up, then built and produced Microsoft Windows, the iPhone, laptops, and the internet.
I remember the Dewey decimal system and card catalogs, and laboriously researched papers and theses at the library, meticulously typing out double-spaced term papers on a manual or possibly IBM selectric typewriter, using whiteout and chalk to cover errors. I remember chalkboards before chalkboard paint was a trend. Carbon paper. Encyclopedias. Home cooking. Full-service gas stations. Cloth diapers. Church bingo. Mister Softee. Cooling off by running through sprinklers. Fourth of July parades. Butcher shops. Hallmark cards. Writing letters. Coin collections. Catcher in the Rye. Doris Day and Rock Hudson. The Fonz. Sunday dinners. Photo albums. Kodak cameras. Records—33, 45, and 78 rpm. The protests of the 60s, flower power, and Woodstock. The opening of Walt Disney World and the riots in Harlem and Watts. Easter bonnets and dressing up for church, speaking in hushed tones, genuflecting. And getting the “look” from mom when I were too wiggly in the pews.
My generation heralded the eradication of smallpox, survived chicken pox, measles, mumps, whooping cough, rubella, and tonsillitis without a vaccine. Dated, married, held my own newborn children and the hands of my parents on their deathbeds. Bought homes, paid them off, and owned several cars. Watched as the interstate highways connected travelers and families. We went to college, held several jobs, and had the first all-volunteer military. We were the first to sign up for direct deposit and IRAs. Corrected scores of kids’ homework and attended their basketball, football, and band competitions. Nursed them through flu, strep throat, surgeries, and worse. Many have lost a child, a spouse, a sibling.
We’ve finally made it. We have accepted, adapted and adopted this brave new world. All we want now is to share our hard-earned wisdom and knowledge and experience. To be deemed useful. Needed. Respected. Honored. We desperately ache to make a difference. To leave some small trace of ourselves as we fulfill the plans God has for us. We don’t want to go silently into that good night.
Yet those who are younger think they are smarter, faster, more important. They see our wrinkles and grey hair not as badges of life, but as handicaps. We begin to fade, the edges get blurry and colors melt into each other. Finally we disappear. Until nothing is left but an epitaph and two dates separated by a hyphen.
And the world is the poorer for it.
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