Boomers, Beatles, and Better Reception

Someone asked me recently if I thought my generation was wasting the resources of our elders. I was so surprised at the question, one of my disposable contacts popped out and I could hardly see to keep my SUV on the road.

As one of the youngest of the generation that knows all about life and has tried it on like a clearance rack sweater, I am, by birthright, a baby Baby Boomer. Sure, I’m over fifty, if hugging the back side of fifty like a first-time skydiver hugs a parachute counts as over fifty. So I know a little bit about resources: Green stamps, recycleable plastic, and the theme songs to twenty years worth of television advertisements, situation comedies, and bad movies.

I’ve lived through hard times. As the youngest, I was the one who always had to do the antenna aerobics to get a good picture on the television. When Romper Room came on I had to hold the rabbit ears skyward like the Statue of Liberty’s torch, and I didn’t dare move until Miss Nancy put down her magic mirror. These days I automatically do arm rotations whenever the HDTV signal goes bad. My kids think I’m crazy, but I'll pose like the Frankenstein monster until we get the signal for Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, strong and clear.

I also remember a time when a shiny foil plate full of tater tots and fried fish was a gourmet meal. When you had to wait til the other people on your party line finished their conversation before you could use the telephone. When you had to wind the film in the camera before you could take another picture. When the flash was something you needed to take a picture, not something people were taking pictures of.

Knowing something of this kind of hardship, Baby Boomers are wary of wasting resources. But as sure as the Beatle’s hit, “Hello Goodbye” is now an advertising jingle for Target, we’ve recycled enough resources to provide fertilizer for generations to come.

So the kids these days had better not pick on me.

I know all the words to the Mountain Dew jingle, the Green Acres theme song, and the big screen version of Born Free.

And I’m not afraid to use them.

Kids, Kennedys, and Pizza Coupons

News sources reveal that there’s another Kennedy in Rehab. That’s like having a media blitz to announce that Paris Hilton has bought a new pair of pumps. In a country where politics have always been a playground for the wealthy and eccentric to display the lack of judgment that would reward the common man with enough state-provided room and board to last until Social Security kicks in, the Kennedy Family is to public decorum what Kirstie Alley is to the Jenny Craig diet.

If the Kennedys would display as much talent in social interaction as they do in politics, the world could be their Facebook page. This family has had so many members graduate from the Betty Ford clinic, they have their own yearbook, homecoming queen, and valedictorian.

But it’s not really sporting of me to pick on these guys. Having raised two teenagers to angsthood, I remember times when pouring bourbon on my cornflakes was more preventive maintenance than problem drinking. The first time I faced a thirteen year old boy with one body hair wielding a safety razor and a pack of bandaids, I put the insurance company on speed dial and chugged a bottle of the first thing I could find in the cupboard. And while Mrs. Butterworth’s isn’t bad for a complimentary cocktail, the effect wasn’t as soothing to my nerves as I had hoped. But it turned out okay. We just plucked that hair out of his ear with a handy pair of tweezers.

Raising teenagers teaches you about alternate reality. My kids live in a video game world where a quick plunge over a nearby cliff means you just have to wait for your extra life to kick in. Try to explain to the bearer of a beginner’s permit that the family Chevy doesn’t operate like the car on Crazy Taxi. Sure he might be able to drive the whole course backwards with virtual passengers, but load up a real life SUV with two toddlers, three soccer balls, and a Labrador with bladder retention problems and there are going to be more pit stops on the way to the Dollar Store than Dale Earnhardt makes all season.

One thing you can say for the Kennedys is that once you’re on Team Kennedy, you’re a member for life. Where I come from, we don’t put down roots so much as set out sprouts and pray for rain. We don’t even write our names on the mailboxes in permanent marker. I put labels in my husband’s workout clothes that read “Current Resident” and our address.

And nothing says, “It’s a holiday” like the 2:00 p.m. child custody rotation and swap meet. At the designated time, alternate sets of parents arrive and we exchange children like they were pizza coupons. Even now that my kids are old enough that I can no longer claim them as co-dependents, they’ll jump up at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon and run to the car clutching their headphones, a spare pillow, and two video games to be named later.

But the entire Kennedy clan will be engaging in freelance flag football at Hyannis Port on the Fourth of July long after they list my name right before “survived by” and “served as volunteer taster for the county BBQ festival” in the twice weekly hometown paper. Millions of dollars in memorials for charitable foundations will follow the death of even a minor Kennedy.

Just make the checks for me out to Diapers for Dogs.

Layla & Levi's

Now that the kids are old enough to leave at home without having to shell out the bucks for a SLED check on a babysitter, we’re able to go out more often. A year or two ago, the man who promised to love, honor, and make sure the dishwasher never quit sprang for tickets to an Eric Clapton concert.

You could tell by the crowd outside that it was going to be an interesting evening. A businesswoman in black heels and hose jostled for position next to a sixty year old hippie in a gauze tie-dyed shirt that looked like it had been stitched together from a box of Fruit Loops. I think he was her date. Worn Levi’s with the red tag far outnumbered designer jeans.

At the concert, I learned three things. Baby Boomers have wide and varied, by which I mean bad, taste in clothes, Baby Boomers think they can dance, and Baby Boomers automatically stand for Layla like a seven-ten split for a cross-eyed bowler.

But when the lights go down, we have one thing in common. We have the music in us. I saw three old men with tattoos where their biceps used to be, cover something in the vicinity of their Rock ’n Roll hearts with sun-basted hands when the opening chords of Layla split the speakers. And when “Beautiful Tonight” blasted romantically across the crowd, there wasn’t a woman among us that didn’t zip back through the Time Tunnel of Youth to the most romantic night of our lives. Couples locked eyes, lip-synched the lyrics, and fell in love all over again.

We may drive minivans, SUV's, and hybrids by day, but we still “get off on ’57 Chevies” at night.