Today, a cute, energetic young mother said something to me about "your generation". That is the first time anyone has classified me by my age, time of birth and the characteristics of the world at that time, at least to my knowledge.
"Why, you young whippersnapper, I was using computers before you were born!" Maybe true, but so what? In 1965, the word "laptop" had not been invented. No lap is large enough for all those cabinets and tape drives. [What's a tape drive?] I admit I am not on TikTok and I don't use Instagram. In fact, I am way behind in my Facebooking! At the time, I first used a computer, doing so meant sliding a deck of punched cards thru a clerk's window so the deck could be run thru the computer and cause some pages of the results of calculations to be printed.
Sure, the world's preoccupations get young people's attention and that leaves a memory. I was born at the beginning of World War II and I have heard about it ever since. I was a graduate student during the Flower Generation but I was never convinced that shouting at police officers in riot gear was a useful path to a better world.
I have found many times that I am not a typical member of "My Generation" or most other groups. When I was 10 years old, I joined the Boy Scouts. It took a year or so to pass the requirements for Tenderfoot, 2nd Class, First Class, Star and Life ranks. I was a poor swimmer and never made Eagle. My first merit badge was the "Scholarship" badge. My Scoutmaster said, "There's a merit badge for Scholarship?" There was and the results of Google show there still is.
I tend to be atypical in everything so be careful about using me as an example of My Generation.
