A Decade Late

Most of my life I've had the feeling that I was born a decade late.  As a child of 1966, born to parents unconcerned with the larger world picture, the turmoil, the successes, the frustrations and the anger of the times were largely lost to me.   Our parents were the disillusioned, and many passed this sense of hopelessness and helplessness on to us.  The Generation X, post Vietnam babes like me, were fed on the fears of atomic obliteration, just as we began reaching out via a new super highway of 1s and 0s.  Most of us came home to empty houses at the end of the day, the first latch-key generation of the dual income household.  We learned what we knew of our world and how to navigate the complex spectrum of human emotion watching the Mod Squad, Star Trek and Giligan's Island.  We are also the best educated of the first 13 generations in America, but we make less money as the economic pie has been plundered by the elite.  The first presidential election I remember clearly was that of Ronald Reagan.  I found him plastic, laughable and way too ancient to be running my country.  Yes, I was exhibiting the sarcasm and cynicsm often attributed to GenXers.  But like many of my generation, there was a fascination with the 60's.  We listened to Jimmi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, and I wore out more than one cassette tape of Janis Joplin.  We all knew who John Lennon was and it was in his music that I could best feel the energy, passion and dreams of that earlier generation and movement.  Last night I watched the movie The U.S. vs. John Lennon with a dear friend who did experience that time first hand.  It made me feel much closer to that experience and see my own generation in a new light.  Maybe I wasn't born too late after all.