Boomer Follies

Quicksearch

Blog Administration

RSS Readers

Sunday, January 31. 2016

I recently read somebody questioning how the "Greatest Generation" - meaning the WW 2 warriors, makers, and builders - could be so great if they spawned the ridiculous Boomers.

Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation by Joe Queenan.

How does it happen that so many people from one generation can end up with so much foolishness and self-absorption in common? Queenan is tough on his peers and on himself, mocking everything from the obsession with staying young and "eating healthy" to the fad for "tag team" funerals with the clergy as an accessory.

You will never touch "organic balsamic," a "heritage tomato" or a free range turkey again without a sense of your own absurdity.

Boomers will see themselves almost too clearly in this book. Laugh or cry? Your choice, but the book's mirror could cause a boomer to want to off himself due to self-disgust. The good part is that it offers one good laugh per page, the bad part is that it offers a horror of self-recognition on every page too.

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 11:14 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

I grow weary of stating this, as presumably this is the attitude of Cruz supporters, but, contrary to common wisdom, the Baby Boomers were a diverse group.

The campus commandos may have gotten all the publicity, like the campus snowflakes of today, but the Boomers also comprised the guys who fought in 'Nam, the hardhats - the blue collar Reagan Democrats, and the Conservative college-goers who were the heart of the Reagan Revolution.

It's also necessary to remind some people that before the "Greatest Generation" were dubbed such by Tom Brokaw, they were The Establishment, despised by all Lefties, so using the term is to be played.

To give them their due, the parents of the Boomers had grown up in the Depression and won WWII and Korea. They wanted their kids to have it better than they did.

But said Generation also worshipped Franklin Roosevelt and the quicksand on which he trod. They also never met a government program they didn't like and were often described as the Greedy Geezers.

And never forget, they're your grandparents.

#1 formwiz on 2016-01-31 12:16 (Reply)

well said. And it's the same with every generation.
Ours were the founders of greenpeace, earth first, and crap like that.
But most of our generation wants nothing to do with such nonsense. They were they guys and gals who fought in Desert Storm, rebuilt after 9/11, thought the Patriot act was something that while bad would be needed for a few years (and it was, both, it should never have been extended as far or wide as it was).
If anything, the majority of all generations are decent, is somewhat naive, people who just want to lead a life that's slightly better than that of their parents and prepare a world in which their children can lead a slightly better life than they had themselves.

#1.1 J.T. Wenting on 2016-01-31 12:44 (Reply)

The "Greatest Generation" got 50,000 of my generation killed for nothing

#1.2 commander0 on 2016-01-31 13:30 (Reply)

Well, they're not my grandparents. I are a Boomer. Just went to the 50th class reunion of my class in my little rural hometown. 50+ out of 65+ alive out of 88 grads [out of 104 freshmen], and not more than a handful [I can think of 3] would fit any of Queenan's descriptions of Boomers. Seriously. Maybe if we had grown up in a suburb.
Half of us at least graduated from college and had very successful careers in areas requiring degrees. Even one of us is the guy who got the most drug money taken from anyone ever by the US govt. Still pretty ordinary other than that.

#1.3 JorgXMcKie on 2016-01-31 15:16 (Reply)

Without reading the book, I can't imagine how anyone could disparage people for liking fine Heritage tomatoes, such as Cherokee Purples or Brandywines. That isn't to say that there aren't plenty of great tasting hybrids out there, like Super Sweet 100s and others. I have yet to find a store- bought offering of any tomato, Heritage or otherwise, which rivals the taste of homegrown tomatoes.

As far as disparagement of this or that group of people goes, a "case" could be built against any of us imperfect souls. Perhaps, the more interested in self- examination a person becomes, the less likely they are to throw stones.

#2 Alan Robertson on 2016-01-31 12:52 (Reply)

"How does it happen that so many people from one generation can end up with so much foolishness and self-absorption in common?"

Because they were raised to have that attitude. Not by their parents, mind you ... well, not only by their parents. To their parents, the men who fought WW2 and the women who married them, the Boomers were the future they had fought for, and they were going to give those kids the best life that their money could buy. And boy howdy, they had a lot of money to buy it with.

On top of that, the Boomers were the first generation to grow up entirely in the era of mass marketing and mass consumption. They were the targets of advertising from birth -- first aimed at their parents, then at them. They were the instigators of the biggest revolution in entertainment the modern world has ever seen: rock'n'roll and its descendant musical forms. Throughout their early lives they were continuously given the message the world revolves around you. It stuck. How could it not? And how could such a childhood produce anything else but self-absorbed fools?

Worse still, the targeted advertising never went away. To this day, the vast majority of ads on regular TV and radio are aimed at Boomers. Why else would prime-time TV, daytime radio, and even a lot of cable TV be chock full of ads about Viagra and other drugs that only older people could possibly want or need?

#3 wolfwalker on 2016-01-31 16:42 (Reply)

Why else would prime-time TV, daytime radio, and even a lot of cable TV be chock full of ads about Viagra and other drugs that only older people could possibly want or need?

Because nobody but Boomers watches network TV anymore?

#3.1 Old Salt on 2016-01-31 22:44 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email	(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications. Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u], [url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here. Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: BBCode format allowed
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry

Maggie's Farm

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

RSS Readers

Sunday, January 31. 2016

Boomer Follies