Oh man, as a Boomer—though I’m like a Boomer with an asterisk, because I don’t subscribe to the full Boomer starter pack—I found this very interesting. Politically, I’m always telling people, “Yeah, it sucks right now. It’s like wading through emotional quicksand while getting pecked by angry seagulls. But guess what? It sucked before, too. We survived. We’ll survive this circus again.”
I was, unfortunately—or maybe fortunately because it makes for great cocktail party stories—alive during the Jones cult and the Manson cult. I remember being a kid, hearing about it on TV, and my stepfather raging in the background about how the "damn hippies" were ruining America. Like, yeah, Dad, but maybe the real threat wasn’t the kid with the acoustic guitar and the flowers in his hair. Maybe it was the fact that you thought a belt was a parenting tool.
And God forbid we held up the peace sign. That wasn’t a gesture in our house. That was an invitation to get “spanked,” which is the nice, PR-friendly way of saying “beaten like a rug on laundry day.” You know, for promoting peace. Because nothing says "stop the violence" like a backhand.
But yeah, I see a lot of similarities right now. It’s scary. It feels like déjà vu with better graphics. But we’ll get through it. Humans are weirdly good at surviving chaos. If we survived the '70s—when cults, polyester, and disco all existed in the same timeline—we can survive this.
It sounds like you had an eventful childhood. By ‘74, they were still making us pick our own switches in the South but they felt bad about it.
You can’t suppress a cultural upheaval, no matter how serious the threat. You’ve seen that. According to this theory, it makes sense that it’s coming back around now. I guess that’s what it means to be human (at least according to US generations).
Thank you for your generous rounds of coffee. You are a true gentleman and I appreciate you. 🤩
Oh man, as a Boomer—though I’m like a Boomer with an asterisk, because I don’t subscribe to the full Boomer starter pack—I found this very interesting. Politically, I’m always telling people, “Yeah, it sucks right now. It’s like wading through emotional quicksand while getting pecked by angry seagulls. But guess what? It sucked before, too. We survived. We’ll survive this circus again.”
I was, unfortunately—or maybe fortunately because it makes for great cocktail party stories—alive during the Jones cult and the Manson cult. I remember being a kid, hearing about it on TV, and my stepfather raging in the background about how the "damn hippies" were ruining America. Like, yeah, Dad, but maybe the real threat wasn’t the kid with the acoustic guitar and the flowers in his hair. Maybe it was the fact that you thought a belt was a parenting tool.
And God forbid we held up the peace sign. That wasn’t a gesture in our house. That was an invitation to get “spanked,” which is the nice, PR-friendly way of saying “beaten like a rug on laundry day.” You know, for promoting peace. Because nothing says "stop the violence" like a backhand.
But yeah, I see a lot of similarities right now. It’s scary. It feels like déjà vu with better graphics. But we’ll get through it. Humans are weirdly good at surviving chaos. If we survived the '70s—when cults, polyester, and disco all existed in the same timeline—we can survive this.
It sounds like you had an eventful childhood. By ‘74, they were still making us pick our own switches in the South but they felt bad about it.
You can’t suppress a cultural upheaval, no matter how serious the threat. You’ve seen that. According to this theory, it makes sense that it’s coming back around now. I guess that’s what it means to be human (at least according to US generations).
Thank you for your generous rounds of coffee. You are a true gentleman and I appreciate you. 🤩
Is that what you appreciates about me? Lol. Sorry. Shameless “Letterkenny” opportunity.
Nah, I mostly appreciate your thoughtful comments 😘