Being a Late Boomer

Although technically I’m part of the baby boomer generation, I guess I was born on the back side of it.  I didn’t become a teenager until 1969.  So I was born too late to be part of the hippie movement.  Too late to have a clue about protesting Vietnam.  It was happening around me, but I was so oblivious.

In junior high school (yes, we had junior high schools when I was growing up…for 7th-9th grades) our classes were grouped by scholastic achievement or something. The kids in my class were all well-read and intelligent.  I remember listening to them arguing about the McGovern campaign and wondering who in the world was McGovern and why did they care if he ran for office?  They made jokes about Mayor Daly in Chicago…why did any of them care what was happening in Chicago, we were in Baltimore!  Good grief, these kids were watching the NEWS??? I couldn’t believe it.  To me, watching the news was as bad as watching Wild Kingdom and Sea Hunt, just boring beyond all reason. 

I was a real fish out of water with many of my classmates. I had no interest in politics or the news. Sports was on another planet.  And I didn’t care about fashion like the girls did.  I cared about music. I wasn’t into any particular band, just whatever music I happened to like hearing.  But it had to be MUSIC.  It needed a melody and lyrics you could understand. I was born between Elvis Presley and Disco. I listened to the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel and the Everly Brothers, the Hollies and Bread. I like harmonies and good poetry. None of this screaming stuff that came along later. Or the grunting of poetry to a beat. Real music.  But the odd thing is that I never hung out with the music crowd.  I’m not even sure I would have known who they were!

I look back and wonder why I was so oblivious to so many things back then. And why when my field of interest then was so narrow, has it become so broad today? Is it just growing up?  Nah, couldn’t be that. I still haven’t figured out what I want to be IF I grow up…