Were you born between 1946 and 1964? So, like my husband and I, you are one of the nearly 75 million Americans in the Baby Boomer Generation. Think of all the changes you’ve seen!
You were born just after the end of World War II, saw the start and end of the Korean War, and were there when the Vietnam War was being fought. You were born under one of these US Presidents: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower (remember “I Like Ike), John F. Kennedy (“Camelot”), or Lyndon Johnson (“Great Society”). only $1,400 and gas for that car was 21 cents a gallon and milk 70 cents a gallon.
Those were the days when families were bigger and lived closer together. Grandparents were close. Tías and Tíos were closed. Family Christmas dinners often included a large table laden with food and people. When you went to a family picnic at the lake, you didn’t worry about locking your house when you left or locking your car when you were at the lake. Children were allowed outside to play without their parents worrying about them.
But the world has changed since then. Some changes have been good and some not so good. In the “good old days” we had to do laundry in a wringer washer and hang it on the clothesline to dry. We now have washers and dryers that are electronic and can wash and dry themselves. Can we buy a house for $12,500 now? Not hard, we can’t even buy a good lot to build a house for that kind of money. The median home price in the US is now $300,000! A new car costs around $30,000 and gas costs almost $2.50 per gallon. Good and bad, we have seen many changes.
What about entertainment back then? At the start of our Boomer generation, hardly anyone had a TV. Sitting down to listen to the radio was a common nocturnal occupation. When you got your first TV, you needed “bunny ears” or an antenna to bring in a local station. Now watching TV means watching a cable channel or even playing a game on your Xbox or PlayStation. Phones used to be big black monsters that sat on a living room table or hung on a wall. You shared your phone line with other people, which is why it was called a “shared line.” Now the phones are pocket-sized, they work from a satellite tower and act like a computer. Come to think of it, computers, which did not exist in the “personal computer” form at the start of the boomer generation, are in the homes of most Americans today. All these changes have led Americans to get instant information about activities around the world. Are these changes better or not? Sometimes we tend to think that we are in “information overload”. I think the first time I saw so much information on one subject was when President Kennedy was assassinated. If you’re a Boomer, you probably remember exactly where you were and what you were doing on that date. I was in elementary school, reading aloud from our Bible Story book when the nun who was the convent cook came in and told our nun what had happened. We all kneel down and pray. Come to think of it, even prayer has disappeared from our schools in the name of “Political Correctness”.
The world of instant information has brought with it information that gives us opportunities to think, as well as fear for our safety. Random attacks happen all over the world and we start to wonder if we are safe anywhere. Our children are murdered in schools. People die in shopping malls. There are random shootings in almost every community. Entire families are devastated by these losses. We care about our families and how we can protect them.
Do we have to carry weapons? Gun laws are so twisted that if we use a gun for self-defense, we face the possibility of a lawsuit. Maybe we should consider non-lethal options like stun guns or pepper spray or even loud alarms or lights to stop an attack. The choice is yours.
So Baby Boomers have seen a lot of changes in their years. Some have been good and some have been bad. We see the need to keep our families safe from different dangers we knew in the past. But, as we have always done, we will adapt!
I’ll be back with more information and safety ideas for Baby Boomers. I hope to see you then.
