Have Baby Boomers Screwed Up America?
Glenn, MI
June 29, 2019
Tiberius escaped to Capri. Jefferson to Poplar Forest. Hearst to his Castle. Thoreau to his pond.
For seventeen years, we have come here.
Our uncle George bought this house, on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, twenty-five years ago. Several years later, he invited Rita and me to bring our 18-month-old first-born son for a 4th of July visit.
With that small child in tow, we survived the 13-hour drive from Atlanta, arrived after midnight, set Alexander in his make-shift crib…and collapsed.
The following morning, we awoke to the light of the sun and the sound of our son. We prepared his breakfast, poured our coffee, and stepped out the back door.
And we were hooked.
The fresh morning air carried a slight breeze through the deciduous trees and flowering plants along the top of the bluff, and pushed small waves across the freshwater ocean lapping the secluded beach at its base.
The scene evolved and mesmerized throughout the day. The waves rose as the afternoon progressed, deep blue sea accentuated bright blue sky, each speckled with rolling caps, stray clouds, and the occasional mast…all absorbed at dusk by the strokes and colors of the Hesperides’ glorious impressionistic brush.
From that day to this, we have managed each summer to mooch off the generosity and hospitality of our aunt and uncle. For one week each year, this has been our summer home…and the place that will forever spring to our sons’ minds (and ours) when they (and we) remember their childhood.
Tho’ they will be here next month, Rita and David unfortunately remained in Atlanta this week, so only that 18 month-old, now 18 years-old, is with me. And we not only glommed onto our aunt and uncle’s house…we also crashed their party!
George and Molly are here, as are my parents. Alexander and I took the liberty of inviting ourselves to join them, brought a few bottles of wine to dilute our imposition, and were welcomed to the proceedings.
Like a Michigan Wolverine at a Columbus bar, or an IRA politician at a Windsor ball, we needed to govern our tongue and watch our step if we hoped to stay…particularly after reading the latest Atlantic on our flight here Monday.
In it, we learned that the generation to which our hosts and my mother belong is responsible for screwing up America.
They had help from their fathers, who got the ball rolling down the road to perdition. But the Hippies and Yuppies of the “Me Generation” hit the accelerator, while leaving themselves time to dive out of the vehicle as their descendants in the backseat careen uncontrollably toward a cliff.
The author initially calls institutional ossification to the stand. She scans the jury, looks each member straight in the eye, and makes her case…
Credentialing, zoning, and busy-body meddling and regulation have been the respectable modus operandi by which the maligned Boomers replaced or disguised the explicit exclusion and overt segregation of their benighted ancestors.
Many of these arguments have merit, and the Baby Boomers have much to answer for. But so do their parents, and their kids.
I am fascinated by generational traits, studies, and generalities. I also value the color and theme that only a broad brush can paint.
But sometimes pointillism has its place. Occasionally one must, like a connoisseur of Monet, Sargent Pepper, or the Coen Brothers, stand back to appreciate how exquisite parts elicit and ennoble the superficial whole.
This week, we are privileged to do so – from up close. For these representatives of the Boomer generation are not representative of the stereotypical Boomer. Or at least not those sitting in the dock of The Atlantic.
The slice of America I’ve been served, baked by this little group gathered on the edge of Lake Michigan, is quite satisfying.
For added flavor, we imported another Boomer – originally from across the pond, now from across the lake – to join us one day for golf, drinks, and dinner…and to reaffirm our faith in the merits of this maligned cohort.
Mike Teal grew up in Manchester, England, worked for decades at Kellogg’s with George, and retired a few years after my uncle left the company. He and his wife, Carol, have since moved to the western shore of Lake Michigan, just north of Milwaukee, and almost directly over the horizon I am now surveying.
Teal is delightful: funny and fun. He is great company…and quite clever on the golf course.
Wednesday at HawksHead links he managed to resist (or conceal) one of his subtle techniques. He refers to it, in his wonderful English accent, as “fluffin’ up me ball”. My mother informed him that, where she comes from, they call it “cheating”.
Regardless, Mike is apparently quite adept at this sly maneuver. It involves lifting one’s ball from a thicket of deep rough to “confirm” that it is his, then carefully replacing it, like a cherry on a sundae, atop buoyant tips of grass…as if it were Vince Lombardi being carried victoriously from the field.
Mike joined and enlivened our dinner that evening, which featured Jerry’s famous pasta and a sunset worthy of Degas. The meal followed a pork specialty my mother concocted the night before, adding pressure on Alexander and me to deliver on the meal for which we were responsible on Friday.
We decided to grill steaks, which we picked up in Kalamazoo after touring the impressive Western Michigan University College of Aviation Thursday morning.
George was kind enough to arrange time for Alexander in a flight simulator so realistic it should have included air sick bags and a missed connection in Atlanta.
Afterward, Dave Powell – former fighter pilot and United Airlines captain, long-time friend of George, and for the last 16 years dean of this college – spent an hour with us discussing the merits, challenges, requirements, and responsibilities of his program and profession. He could not have been more generous with his time or his insights.
After a brief driving tour of the main WMU campus in Kalamazoo we returned home, and my son and I managed to grill dinner without igniting the house. Like Napoleon’s armée sensing the first flakes on the outskirts of Moscow, our relatives watched the proceedings with apprehension, ready to order fire trucks (and a pizza) at a moments notice.
If our source of food was in doubt, the ability to wash it down never was. One contribution to American culture for which Boomers deserve considerable credit is the resuscitation and refinement of wine as a social beverage. After this week, future generations may need to find fresh supply.
Alexander and I spent this morning with my mother in charming Saugatuck, strolling along shaded streets and into small shops beginning to bustle with weekend and July 4 tourists.
Sadly, some places remained quiet, as abnormally high lake levels flooded the front of a couple waterfront establishments, leaving them desolate during this peak period of a short Michigan summer.
My mother passed on an afternoon zip-line across the Kalamazoo River, but after Alexander and I did so we returned home to dip our bodies in the lake, dig our toes into the sand, and sink our teeth into the delicious swordfish George and Molly served from their generous grill.
Samuel Johnson considered an assertion to be true if it requires many words to prove it is false. As those who have suffered this far through this note are acutely aware, I have used many words trying to exonerate my parent’s generation of the charge leveled in The Atlantic.
No surprise there. This is, after all, the soil from which sprouted such intractable weeds as Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald J. Trump.
Then again, the Democratic debates this week applied plenty of fresh manure, fertilizing the plot for the emergent dregs of our own fetid generation. And the mire appears only to deepen as we wade further into the cesspool from which later leaders are being hatched.
But no matter.
If the Boomer generation as a whole cannot be absolved, the small portion gathered here certainly can. This country is a much better place for each of them.
Besides, they always provide great company to escape the mess their peers have made, and…for a litany of unforgettable summers…a wonderful place to do so.
JD
