For those of you that were asleep or didn't take this class, The Baby Boom Generation are the people born from 1946-1964. They are noted for several things, but mainly their narcissism, which is truly epic. Did you know that the first word ever spoken by the average Baby Boomer as a baby was "Me"? You can Google it if you like.
There's a new book on The Baby Boomer experience written by a Baby Boomer named P.J. O'Rouke who is probably one of the funniest people on the planet today. The book is titled Baby Boom: How It Got That Way And It Wasn't My Fault And I'll Never Do It Again.
I know what you are thinking: "Oh great, another book about how great Baby Boomers are and they can barely use an iPhone". Trust me, it is not another one of those books. Most Baby Boomer books focus on how life was grand until JFK was assassinated and the country responded by going into a non-winnable land war in Southeast Asia, taking drugs, and getting naked. Oh yeah, our music was better, too.
O'Rouke doesn't really go into that. His contribution to Baby Boomer literature is that he divides Baby Boomers into four classes, like school.
The Senior Class was born in the late 40's. O'Rouke notes members include "Hillary Clinton and Cheech Marin". The Junior Class was born in the early to mid-50's. The Sophomore Class was born in the late 50's. Finally, the Freshman class was born in the 60's. The President of The United States is in this class. O'Rouke says of the Freshman class: "They have the luxury of fretting of things like the deficit..the fairness of the nation's health insurance system, and whether, if they spend a lot of time at the gym and get a tattoo they stand any chance of hooking up with twenty-six-year-olds". (The answer: No)
I was glad to read something like this. Finally somebody had the nerve to admit that all Baby Boomers are not alike.
For example, I am in The Sophomore Class. What I remember about my growing up is that boys started to wear "that old long hair", as Old Man Manis used to say. I remember a lot of talk about Nixon. That topic was on everybody's mind.
One topic was Women's Liberation. The whole thing behind Women's Liberation was that women are just as good as any man and they didn't have to wear a bra anymore. I have a feeling that's when a lot of men starting supporting (ha, ha) Women's Liberation.
O'Rouke says that the Upper Boomer Classmen are real intense while the younger ones are not. That's how The President of The United States can attend a church where The Preacher takes God's name in vain and spews anti-Semantic rhetoric and claim, with a straight face, that he never remembers hearing anything close to that. It wasn't that the President was lying. He just didn't remember it, because, you know, whatever.
I can honestly say this though: I love my sophomore class. The people I graduated with at Wheeler High School in 1977 were all great people. I was never bullied or picked on. I was 5'6", 130 pounds and wore thick glasses. That tells you something right there.
One of my favorite memories of high school was an English class, when in a moment of trying to be hip or temporary insanity, the teacher decided to let us bring modern record albums (you kids know them as "vinyls") and use lyrics from the songs as an example of poetry. I think she thought we would bring in The Sound of Music soundtrack.
The first kid brought in a Paul Simon album. I'm not sure the teacher was aware of Paul Simon, but if she was she probably assumed the student was going to play "Bridge of Troubled Water" or "I Am A Rock", which were both English class type of songs. Nope. He played the song, "Duncan". Here is the first stanza of the song we heard:
"Couple in the next room
Bound to win a prize
They’ve been going at it all night long"
Oh, gets better.
"I crept to her tent with a flashlight
And my long years of innocence ended
Well, she took me to the woods
Saying here comes something and it feels so good"
The teacher was horrified, of course. Another student brought in a Led Zeppelin album. If this teacher didn't know Paul Simon, you know she didn't have a clue about Led Zeppelin. While the Led Zeppelin song was blaring away, the teacher had a pained look on her face. It got worse from the literary analysis of the song by the student. It was: "I don't know what this means". He's a college professor now, by the way.
Years later, I saw this teacher at a wedding and I asked her if she still allowed students to bring in records to analyze songs. She said, "No! I learned my lesson with your class".
I can honestly say we did not have it bad. Our lives have been pretty cushy. We tell our children, "Yeah, when I was your age, you didn't have all of these fancy TV stations. No! You have three or four at the most. And had to get-your-lazy-butt-off-of-the couch and turn the channels too. And if President Ford was on, well, it was bye-bye Fonzie that night."
Somehow, we made it through all of that and now we have the world we have today. Sorry, kids.
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