Category: Baby Boom

Blogging Boomers Carnival Hits 100! Don’t Miss It

Boomer Chronicles
Hard to believe, the the fiercely productive Blogging Boomers offer, this week, their 100th carnival entry.  Among the posts to celebrate this landmark:  life after a tough divorce, supercentarians: what it's like to be 105, keeping all that personal stuff off your "official" Facebook page and much more.  Help us celebrate our 100th effort:  come by and show some love.

Pete, Bruce, Beyonce and Obama: the Changing of the Guard

Brucespringsteen_l

There they are: two of the cultural icons of my political life.  Pete Seeger, close to 90, peer and colleague of Woody Guthrie, creator of We Shall Overcome and Turn Turn Turn, of Abiyoyo and Sam the Whaler, leader of The Almanac Singers and the Weavers.  If there was a civil rights rally or a labor rally or an anti-war rally, he was there. 

Beside him, Bruce Springsteen, a modern troubadour whose songs speak for many Americans whose opinions are never sought, whose voices are seldom heard.

As they stood together at the Lincoln Memorial in celebration of the Inauguration of Barack Obama, they represented, to me, all that I had believed and tried to help bring into being.  To many, though, they were “the ultimate in subtly old-left populism.”  Speaking about the concert early Sunday before it began, I kept talking about Bruce.  A younger friend gently suggested that he was probably not the day’s headliner.  That would be Beyonce Knowles, she said.  I’m sure she’s right. 

As one who was present the last time “the torch was passed to a new generation;” as a strongly defined Baby Boomer, it’s painful to hear anchormen celebrate the fact that “there will never be another Baby Boom President.”  It’ s not that I mind the fact of that; it’s just painful that it seems to be something to celebrate.  So many of us have tried so to be productive agents of change, have spent our lives working either full or part of the time to see that our country offers more to the least powerful, demands quality education, justice and maybe, even peace.  So to hear Joe Scarborough revel in the fact that “16 horrible years of baby boomer presidents is over” really hurts.  All my adult life we’ve been tarred by the brush of the least attractive of us while the work of the rest of us went unnoticed.  For most campaigns, as I’ve written before, we were the secret weapon of the right.

So as exciting as all this is, especially for one who has supported Obama for so long, it’s also bittersweet because I feel the shadow of the disdain in which so many of us are held.  I really don’t know how to respond.  If I were to try, it might be by offering some of the words to Si Kahn‘s They All Sang Bread and Roses.  It’s better with the music, but it does the job.

They All Sang “Bread and Roses (Si Kahn, 1989,
1991)

The more I
study history,

The more I
seem to find

That in
every generation

There are
times just like that time

When folks
like you and me who thought

That they
were all alone

Within this
honored movement

Found a
home.

 

And ‘though
each generation fears

That it
will be the last,

Our
presence here is witness

To the
power of the past.

And just as
we have drawn our strength

From those
who now are gone,

Younger
hands will take our work

And carry
on.

Introducing Tuesday Tours: Random Worthy Blog Posts

Tourist with suitcases
Welcome to Tuesday Tours.  There's so much good stuff out in the Blog Universe; we all have our blog readers filled with those we love.  It's tough to keep up though, so until further notice, I'll be offering Tuesday tours of some of my own frequent favorites.

One of my favorite bloggers, Pundit Mom, offers posts at two ends of the spectrum as the week begins.  Both are worth reading.  The first:  advice to the Obamas about the neighborhood around Sidwell Friends School.  It's just fun.  The second is a serious post with a serious question:  When is it right to tell an airline official that a passenger is making you nervous
? 

Concerned about what's going on in Israel?  Check back daily at Writes Like She Talks, where Jill Zimon has her finger on what's up all over the Web.  Here's a sample.

The wise Maria Niles is looking to figure out all those generation labels like X and Boomer and Millennial — and what they mean (and what the heck her own is.)

Also "generationally speaking," you know that all last year I wrote comparing 1968 and 2008.  Well,  Time Goes By columnist Saul Friedman has done me one (actually two) better, writing of lessons from his own iconic president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Obama's point of reference, Abraham Lincoln. 

Beth Kanter is a legend.  Rightfully so.  So when she offers 52 ways for Non-profits to use social media efficiently as a New Year's gift to her readers, I'm figuring that at least some of them can help the rest of us too.

Two of my favorite moms have something special too:  I'm late on this one, but Her Bad Mother's description of a willful three-year-old (it's long so wait until you have time) is priceless.  Some kids are just strong strong little people.

Also, Woulda Coulda Shoulda's Mir Kamin celebrated her son's last single-digit birthday with a wonderful hymn to a newly-nine-year-old.  She never misses, that one.

Finally, this one – because the happy family in the photo is mine.

Doubt – More than a Movie — Also a Time Capsule


This film, Doubt, is exceptional. Smart, funny, moving, intricate and remarkably well-acted, it is, without exception, a remarkable accomplishment. I grew up in Pittsburgh and nuns like Meryl Streep’s Sister Aloysius Beauvier were a staple in my life, not in Catholic school, but every weekend, at speech tournaments at Greensburg Catholic or Central Catholic or other parochial schools that so often hosted the competitions. 

God help you if one of your judges was one of these sisters.  They were the toughest and the scariest.  Even in the cafeteria between Round 2 and Round 3, they wandered with the same “eyes in the backs of their heads” that Sister Aloysius demonstrates to her young protege.  The teams they coached were the amazing.  Practiced, smart, disciplined and resourceful, they did the sisters proud. 

As I watched Meryl Streep as the principal of a Catholic elementary school where accusation and suspicion take over, all the memories of those scary Saturday mornings at the front of a classroom, giving speeches on labor unions or disarmament or the dangers of the Soviet Union came tumbling back. The nerves were unavoidable; when the sisters were among your judges, you had to be prepared, organized, well-spoken and committed.  Or else.

Probably the familiarity of those nuns (weird for a nice Jewish girl to have access to, I suppose) and the memory of all the Sundays I went to Mass with friends after a sleep-over added to the film’s impact.  I know I had a very personal reaction.  But whether you grew up in Idaho, Arizona or the Bronx, the film is irresistible and won’t leave you alone just because it’s not on the screen any longer.  I’m not going to talk about the plot because that will diminish the pleasure of watching it unfold, but if you respect great writing, great acting and excellence in film-making, you don’t want to miss this one.

Farewell to A True Anti-Apartheid (and Jewish) Hero(ine) of South Africa: Helen Suzman

Helen Suzman3
Nobody ate lobster tail at our house, or bought anything else that came from South Africa, even way back in the 50’s, .  Well before Randall Robinson’s TransAfrica or Steve Van Zandt’s Sun City (see below**), my mother was actively boycotting the apartheid regime.  Despite her generally moderate liberal perspective, she was fierce about this and created my own boycott habit, something that drove my kids crazy all the years that they drank Ovaltine while their friends got Nestle Quick. (That’s another story though.)

Of course anyone back then who knew about South Africa or read Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country understood the horror of it, but barely anyone talked about it, or demanded action from their own countries.  So why was this the issue that set fire to my mom?  

Helen Suzman*, who died on New Year’s Day at the age of 91, was the reason.  For years she stood as the only anti-apartheid voice in the entire South African Parliament – for six of those years as the only woman as well.The Jewish wife of a well-to-do physician, she entered politics, visited Mandela in prison, stood and spoke, often alone, for the end of apartheid and all that it stood for.  Because she was brave, and because, like so many early white activists there, she was Jewish, her often solitary and always dangerous crusade was a matter of particular pride to many Jewish women, my mother among them.  Her powerful example was a foreshadowing of much that came later.  By the time I was in college, friends were lying in at the doors of Chemical Bank to demand divestiture – removal of American funds from South African investments.  By the 80’s daily demonstrations, and arrests, outside the DC South African embassy kept a drumbeat of attention on the issue.   It took until February of 1990 for Mandela to be released from prison, granting great credit to Ms. Suzman, who later stood at his side as he signed the new constitution.

How interesting that one of the earliest moral political lessons I learned came from the courage of a woman half way around the world, not only because of her courage and effectiveness but also because of her faith.  We speak so casually of “role models” these days, but when there is a true model of how to live, the impact is enormous.  I’ve known that for a long time, and as I watched Barack Obama tell city kids he visited on Thanksgiving eve that ” You guys might end being the president some day” I thought it again.

Ms. Suzman’s example multiplied her power: not only did she stand alone for change when such a stand was desperately needed, she also taught all those who watched her that they could stand too, that just as her stands gave birth to theirs, their own actions multiplied the impact of hers.  As we enter this new year, with so much ahead of us, it’s something we would do well to remember – and live by.
*Here’s an interview with Ms. Suzman

**Here’s the 1985 video from “Miami Steve” and artists from Herbie Hancock to Pat Benetar and Bonnie Raitt to Lou Reed and The Boss himself.

Money, Madoff, Seniors and Struggles

ROnnie banner
NO this is not the lazy way out – sending you to another blog.  Ronni Bennett is a highly visible, highly regarded "elder blogger" and has formed a large, vital community around her blog Time Goes By.  A retired CBS News producer, she moved from Manhattan to Maine for a more affordable standard of living and she's got her fingers on many pulses.  Today, she writes about the already tragic costs of the economic crisis for "the rest of us" – those not losing fortunes because of Bernard Madoff but just losing ground.

I think the Madoff story is worth the attention it's getting,  not just or even mainly because of the damage it did to high-end investors but because someone of such stature (Head of NASDAQ) would – and could- do such things – and that he got away with it for so long.  It's institutionally mind-blowing.  As I wandered the web reading stories for this post, I discovered more reasons, too.  It did disproportionate damage to Jews and Jewish charities – and Madoff was Jewish.  Another "how could he?"  Non-profits around the world, literally, are devastated; an example of the non-profit chaos generated by Mr. Madoff's activity. 

Even so, Ronni's point about the focus on the big stuff when there are so many stories, especially at this time of year, is worth taking a look at.  She's right about that; we need to see more profiles of those people who "work hard and play by the rules" and are struggling to figure out how to survive.  They're our neighbors – and, in many cases, they're us.

John Kennedy, Barack Obama, 2 Inaugurations and 2 Generations of Dreamers

JFK Inaugural crowd
I seem to be living in the WayBack Machine this year.  Lots of memories of 1968 and even 1963.  Now as January 20, 2009 approaches, yet another looms.  January 20, certainly, but in 1961.

See that crowd?  Somewhere, way in the back, probably at least a block beyond, stand an almost-fifteen-year-old girl and her mother.  Fresh off an overnight train from Pittsburgh, having arrived at Union Station in time to watch the Army flame-throwers melt a blizzard’s worth of snow on the streets of the inaugural route, they make their way to their parade seats: in the bleachers, way down near the Treasure Building.  

I spent most of 1960 besotted with John Kennedy.  And Jackie.  And Caroline.  And all the other Kennedys who came with them.  Most of my lunch money went to bus fare as, after school, I shuttled  back and forth “to town” to volunteer in the local JFK headquarters.  I even had a scrapbook of clippings about Kennedy and his family. 

JFK Inaugural tickets

So.  My parents surprised me with these two parade tickets.  My mom and I took the overnight train and arrived
around dawn Inauguration morning.  We couldn’t get into the swearing-in itself, of course, so we went to a bar that served breakfast (at least that’s how I remember it) and watched the speech on their TV, then made our way along the snowy sidewalks to our seats, arriving in time to watch the new president and his wife roll by, to see his Honor Guard, the last time it would be comprised solely of white men (since Kennedy ordered their integration soon after,) in time to see the floats and the Cabinet members and the bands and the batons.

It was very cold.  We had no thermos, no blankets, nothing extra, and my mom, God bless her, never insisted that we go in for a break, never complained or made me feel anything but thrilled.  Which I was.   As the parade drew to a close, and the light faded, we stumbled down the bleachers, half-frozen, and walked the few blocks to the White House fence. I stood there, as close to the fence as I am now to my keyboard, and watched our new president enter the White House for the first time as Commander in Chief.

That was half a century ago.  I can’t say it feels like yesterday, but it remains a formidable and cherished memory.  It was also a defining lesson on how to be a parent; it took enormous love and respect to decide to do this for me.  I was such a kid – they could have treated my devotion like a rock star crush; so young, they could have decided I would “appreciate it more” next time.  (Of course there was no next time.)   Instead, they gave me what really was the lifetime gift of being a part of history.  And showed me that my political commitment had value – enough value to merit such an adventure.

Who’s to say if I would have ended up an activist (I did)- and then a journalist (I did) – without those memories.  If I would have continued to act within the system rather than try to destroy it. (I did)  If I would have been the mom who took kids to Europe, brought them along on news assignments to Inaugurations and royal weddings and green room visits with the Mets (Yup, I did.)  I had learned to honor the interests and dreams of my children the way my parents had honored my own.  So it’s hard for me to tell parents now to stay home. 

My good friend, the wise and gifted PunditMom, advises “those with little children” to skip it, and since strollers and backpacks are banned for security reasons, I’m sure she’s right.  But if you’ve got a dreamer in your house, a young adult who has become a true citizen because of this election, I’d try to come.  After all, he’s their guy.  What he does will touch their lives far more than it will ours.  Being part of this beginning may determine their willingness to accept the tough sacrifices he asks of them – at least that – and probably, also help to build their roles as citizens – as Americans – for the rest of their lives.  Oh — and will tell them that, despite curfews and learner’s permits, parental limit-setting and screaming battles, their parents see them as thinking, wise and effective people who will, as our new President promised them, help to change the world. 

For My Friends with Young Children, or My Annual Post-Thanksgiving Meditation

Farm tight
Here's the thing.  My children live far away, one six hours to the west and the other, with his fiance, six hours to the east.  We've been together for Thanksgiving week – all of us – hanging out, cooking, touring around DC, running errands and just being — and being thankful.  It's always special when the whole family is together; it seemed so natural when the boys were little and now it's a treat.  I cooked a million meals with them banging around in the kitchen.  Now it's a precious thing when I make turkey meatloaf with my younger son.  I watch him, an accomplished cook, chop like a pro, listen as he reassures me that this new thing will taste great, laugh with him, trade recipes.  I rode around in cars, subways, buses with them all the time, and, along with their dad, dragged them into a million stores from grocery to toys to clothing to antiques.  Now it's the pleasure of serious shopping at Ikea with my older son and his fiance, getting to be around while they choose a sofa.  Seeing what a fine woman she is, watching them seamlessly making decisions together, measuring, taking photos, laughing, planning.  It feels great to see them launching themselves so well together and makes it OK that much of their life is lived far from us.  That's how it is.

I know though, that when kids are little, schlepping them in and out of car seats and strollers, keeping them occupied while you try to cook, keeping little hands out of the Ikea toy bins, mediating murderous sibling battles, keeping a home running while keeping kids in line – it's a lot.  I remember.  It doesn't matter whether you work outside your home or stay home with your family; either way there's so much to handle.  I kept thinking about that as I wandered around Washington with these adults who are also, forever, my children, reminding myself how long it would be before we would all do it together again.  Reminding myself that it's a credit to us that our kids are self-sufficient, productive and wonderfully decent, funny, loving men — and how blessed we are that they chose to come to us for the holiday — and that it's right, and good, that they have their own lives and homes and futures.

But though that's true, I wanted to tell you about this because it goes so fast.  All the cliches are true.  Turn around and they're grown.  That doesn't mean it isn't hard to keep things going now, it just means that those days will be gone, sooner than you think.

My youngest is approaching 30.  My oldest is getting married.  They have money market accounts and careers and fiances and plans and even some gray hairs.  They teach me more than I teach them (although that was always true.)  They are, like those of you reading this, grown ups, and my husband and I have our own rich and happy life together.  But it still can be, for those few moments of farewell at the end of each visit, desperately painful, on both sides.

As we drove to the airport last night, I (sort of) joked that I had to hook my iPod up to the car radio so that, when I was sad after leaving them off, I could blast Bruce, or Great Big Sea to make me feel a little better.  When we arrived at the departure entrance, I got out of the car to help unload the bags.  My son the chef was still in the front seat of the car. I was worried that a cop would throw me out of the parking place so I went toward the door to ask what he was doing.  He turned around.  "You iPod's all hooked up" he said, and reached out to give me a hug goodbye.