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What a long strange trip it's been.
By Achance Posted in Culture — Comments (40) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Several of us here got lost in the 'Sixties over the last few days. We aging Boomers basically said "you had to have been there," and many of the younger posters replied that we had generally f**ked up the World. Well, neither and both are true, but one is more true than the other, to which proposition I offer the following:
This is a Southern and Western view of the Boomer story. We don't share the same experience as our demographic cohort on the Coasts and in the industrial Midwest; they can tell their own story.
I was born an American and a Southerner; the second is more important in many ways than the first. The hydrogen bomb and I were born in the same year: 1949. I lived the first 18 years of my life in the house that my grandfather built in 1921 on land that had been in my family since Georgia's Creek Cession lottery in 1795. Some member of my lineal family fought, and many died, in every American war from the French and Indian through WW II, though many of them fought on the side that many of you would not consider "American" in the Civil War. And yes, I can claim that RS (Revolutionary Soldier) but beyond mentioning it in passing, I'll leave that to the snobs in the DAR and Society of Cincinattus.
Rural Georgia in the 1950s was separated from Georgia in the 1850s by gasoline and electricity and little else. The economy was subsistence agriculture and timber. Everyone who didn't have hereditary wealth or practice a profession was either a farmer or a merchant, and many, including my family, were both. Almost from birth I attended Sunday School and Church at the Primitive Baptist Church and for the first ten years or so of my life easily accepted their hard shell, predestinarian, "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it," view of Man, God, and the World. I also easily accepted the World of Jim Crow segregation as simply a part of the air I breathed. Those of you who didn't live in that world need to understand that segregated did not mean separate except in certain public places. I lived with Blacks, my playmates were Black. My family had a symbiotic relationship with a couple of Black families; we had land, they had labor. The older ones, Black and White, worked the fields and we children, Black and White, ran wild in the woods fishing, hunting sometimes, building forts, climbing trees, playing ball, and, yes, even fighting sometimes. I thought it was a pretty good life. We ate well, dressed well by the standards of the day, had electricity and running water, cold only, had a tractor, though still had a couple of teams, and even had a car so we didn't have to drive the farm truck to town on Saturday or to Church. And then in 1958 we had a particularly good tobacco crop and bought a television and my world changed.
There were already some cracks in the foundation of my world; education and fundamentalism don't coexist very well. I thought dinosaurs were pretty cool, but my Grandma and the Preacher said they were made up because they weren't in The Bible. I thought rockets and airplanes were way cool, but the consensus at home was that if God had meant man to fly, He'd have given him wings and if He wanted him on the Moon, He'd have put him there. You could get past that stuff by just not talking about it. You couldn't get past "Ozzie and Harriet" and "The Donna Reed Show" though. That's when I realized we were poor. No, we weren't poor, we were destitute, we lived in a foreign land; nobody I knew, not even the "rich" people lived like that. These people had Dad's sedan, Mom's station wagon, the the kids had Hot Rods. We had a '47 Ford sedan, and old, really old, Dodge truck, and I didn't know any kids that had cars. I also didn't know anybody whose Father went to the office or whose Mom always had her hair fixed. There were lots of things I didn't know about.
And then the television began to show things like troops in Little Rock and "demonstations," whatever they were, here and there. And I sat in fifth period Geography class when the Principal came on the PA and told us President Kennedy was shot. Kennedy wasn't much loved in The South so the news didn't cause us to cancel the Christmas Parade in a nearby town that my HS Band was playing in that Friday night. I came home from Church Sunday and turned on the TV just in time to see Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. After that, it was the demonstration here, the arrests there, the riot somewhere else on the TV every night. The Preacher railed about the '64 Civil Rights Act and talked about the sons of Ham and all that, but by then, I was having a lot of trouble believing. And always, there was the war.
Somewhere in there I smoked my first cigarette, drank my fist beer, had what passed for sex, and one of my "city" cousins in Savannah gave me my first joint. I saw the Beatles and The Rolling Stones on Ed Sullivan, learned to play a guitar, and learned that the stuff you learned in Church choir worked pretty well with "rock and roll," so I became a musician. By graduation in '67, my hair was long, my attitude was bad, and, frankly, I didn't believe anything that came from lectern, pulpit, podium, or stump. I didn't "Question Authority," I denied it. If I'm ever hanged for treason, my last words may well be, "I owe it all to my high school principal."
Then came college and I hated it. At UGA, the first question was, "what does your daddy do" and the second was "what fraternity do you belong to." If you didn't answer those satisfactorily, you were not human. So after one quarter, obviously I couldn't answer them correctly, I transferred to Georgia Southern, then a small rural college. I stayed in school and went to class enough to keep my deferment. I played music, made money, did a lot of drugs, and enjoyed the company of a lot of women - the pill and "women's liberation" were a good thing in those days. I was 19, driving an XKE, and had no visible means of support, which facts raised the ire of the local constabulary when I went home to visit my parants in '69. There then arose a dispute over the two kilos of pot and thousand hits of acid in the trunk of said XKE. The Deputy Sheriff really should have had probable cause for that stop, and to this day I am the World's greatest fan of the 4th Am.
And then it all passed. Bands break up. Lifestyles change. The War ended. The Civil Rights Movement moved on to poverty pimping. I got married, had a kid, made some money more or less legitimately, and saw an article about this pipeline they were going to build in Alaska.
It took a decade or so to get back, more or less, to the country kid in Georgia who knew how to work and to fend for himself. I never was a hippie, though I probably looked like one at times - still do to some eyes. I never was a radical, a communist, socialist, or even committed to anything much other than doing as I pleased. I was simply a rebel, a word that doesn't have a bad connotation in my heritage, and there was damned well plenty to rebel over. I don't regret any of it, don't wish I'd done anything differently except find some way to find a reconcilliation with my now departed parents. The world in which I started grade school had ceased to exist by the time I finished high school, and there was nothing nor no one to which I could look up to, so I made my own way.
So, the Boomer, the old hippie, can pee in a bottle any time you want him to now - haven't touched drugs in thirty years. I've raised two families, made decent money, was a significant part of running a state for awhile, and can now just comfortably play with my keyboard or my boat, and just fade away. It's somebody else's turn now, but what a long strange trip it's been!
Post script: I'm leaving for Mexico tomorrow, so you can all have open season on Alaska for awhile. While I'm gone I'll pass my two year anniversay here and I just want to tell you what a wonderful group of people you are and what an honor and privilege it is to share thoughts with you all. See you all again in May. Hasta la vista!
The fundamental lesson is
by Achance
if anything good is going to happen to or for you, you have to do it yourself. I simply destest people who can't see beyond where they are or who look to someone else to do things for them. I ain't proud of some of the things I did to get myself out of that world, but they were what I had to do at the time. Even crime pays if you're good enough at it.
Just by way of illustration, the furtherest thing from a Georgia dirt farmer's mind is the ocean. When I was a kid, we'd go see the relatives in Savannah and my mother wouldn't let me swim in the ocean at Tybee Island, she was so afraid of it. When I get back from Mexico, I'm sitting for my Ocean Master's license. I don't go out to the open Pacific much, it's $500 worth of gas to get there and I prefer the sheltered waters of the Inside Passage, but the thing's there to take, and I'm not afraid of it.
In Vino Veritas
don't be a stranger
by pangloss
They got the intra-webs in MX too.
“Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15.”
-Ronald Reagan
It will be interesting to see the evolution.....
by St. Louis Conservative
....of the Gen Xers and the Millenial Generation. They never had a "cultural revolution" akin to the 1960s. Leftists weren't held up as icons (for the most part anyway) the way they were in the 1960s. Pop/rock music is generally less political than it was, and the anti-war movement is but a tiny fraction of what it was then - much to the chagrin of the "old guard" of 1960s leftism.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
No draft,
by Achance
that explains it all. Take away the draft and you could have put the entire "counterculture" in a good sized room.
In Vino Veritas
Disagree
by dorothyonthehill
Strongly.
The more one attempts to apply 60s or boomer standards for "cultural revolution" to Gen Xers, Echo Boomers, Millenials, Gen Y or Gen Me the worse one's generational myopia becomes.
Just because we didn't go through what YOU went through, doesn't discount our own challenges, "revolutions" or significance as a market...
Doing so, in fact, proves my belief that if it didn't happen or relate to the Boomers, it wasn't and isn't important.
Hmm. You assume that I am a boomer.
by St. Louis Conservative
Are you sure about that?
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Strongly Disagree...With Love :)
by StandardCandle
Look as a 27 year old Conservative who had his own "rebellious" stage in life...
First of all why do I need a cutural revolution?
You know what makes me angry? The diaries of "look how screwed up I was...and now I'm conservative...if only the youth would appreciate the struggles I've experienced"...
What ever happened to "those who fail to learn from history are forced to repeat it".
I have been conservative all my life including my "rebellion" years...call it a strong sense of right and wrong...call it arrogance...call it a boring life...I never abused substances, but rioted against my High School and dropped out...continued my own education as my mother was working full time and still raising young ones. I read philosophy, religion, politics, science, and worked as an IT professional by the time I was 18. Took out loans and went on to a University to put paper behind the experience.
I didn't need a cultural revolution to find answers to the mysteries of life...and I consider myself a full time student at every stage.
Now let's address the "Cultural Revolution"
"They never had a "cultural revolution" akin to the 1960s
How can you say that as a conservative? Are you saying the Left doesn't really exist anymore?
"Leftists weren't held up as icons (for the most part anyway) the way they were in the 1960s."
No...they just control the mainstream media...and make the case consistently that leftists are centrists and I'm just a right wing nut.
"Pop/rock music is generally less political than it was"
I used to manage/produce/promote Gen-X/Gen-Y punk rock...I can personally attest to you that music even that of the mainstream in the pop culture of today is nothing but Anti-War/Green Speech/My Government sold my generation to Oil or Big Business...What you hear on the Radio (WHICH IS OLD MEDIA) is mostly POP or Rap or Country that are promoting gutter lifestyle of sex, drugs, pimpin, and I've been dealt a bad deal but either Jesus or Government will save me...
Let's talk about Gen-X/Gen-Y's war...While the Boomers have been in control...what has really been accomplished?
From the FiCon argument:
The Fed has avoided recessions and built up consumer/money market confidence by lowering the interest rate...now... CEO Boomers have provided the Gen-X/Gen-Y with a Credit Crunch that even rate cuts can't fix. If this tanks...we face the same peril if not greater than the greatest generation...
The Dems talk about raising taxes as if that's gonna help anything...The value of the Dollar is weaker than I can remember in my lifetime... as Boomer politicians talk about their state's needs...building up PORK spending and better ways to spin the rhetoric so the mass public doesn't see the truth which is...NOBODY IN GOVERNMENT IS FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE and WALL STREET CAN AND WILL PUSH THE LIMITS to the brink of disaster. The Boomers have been in power since Bill took office and I'm still hearing the same debates since Reagan left office, I was 8.
You'd think Boomers would have learned something from all the 401k problems of DotCommies...nope...Boomers are fiscally irresponsible...want proof?
Look at my generation's wasteful entitlement attitudes...Where'd they get it from? Well it wasn't their grandparents who still clip coupons and eat out once a year!
From the DefCon argument:
Weak willed Boomers are always shifting with the media spittle over the war in Iraq...We're for it, We're against it, The Surge is crazy...Oh wait its working...I remember Johnson's lies...Bush is a man of faith...Oh my email says something Patriotic I'll donate $20 to my candidate now and forward some idiotic message of backwards logic...
Boomers are afraid to quote "punch the hippies" cause they realize they may have to take a shot at the man...err eh...person in the mirror.
From the SoCon argument:
ED commercials paraded in front of us and our children in Prime Time...simultaneously we have the pleasure of seeing people with Herpes having a better time than us because a magic pill makes the itch go away! Divorce is easy! Litigation is Easy! Abortion should be subsidized by the government! Religion is the Anti-Christ! I'm 60 years old and making $12/hr because I got downsized and won't bother to educate myself because mom and dad are likely to die off soon and I'll inherit their house and squander the inheritance to the death tax which my politicians approve of and I back them because more taxes on the Rich means more entitlements to me the poor middle aged undereducated wannabe hippy care of 1965."
or from the "independent" boomer ...The Anti-Christ is the progressive nature of all mankind...the end of the world is coming in 2012 and I should buy Gold with that nest egg I was able to build up over my 42 years as a Small Business owner whom really despises taxes so I vote republican and send my token $300 /yr to politician of choice hoping that my taxes don't get raised...but screw the FiCons/DefCons/SoCons cause I'm not an activist...I just like to be represented by one on T.V.!
Now I know you're all going to tell me that I've mischaracterized the Baby Boomers...as leftist-independent morons...but...
For you Baby Boomers on this site...I submit to you that you...like me...are the exception to your generation.
That's why we're RedStaters...
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. " -James Madison
...And no, I don't really care that you're 2 years older than me...
"is mostly POP or Rap or Country that are promoting gutter lifestyle of sex, drugs, pimpin, and I've been dealt a bad deal but either Jesus or Government will save me..."
You can't say that about Country Music. Anyone who tries hasn't listened to any. Even the Chicks (God, how I hate that band) can't be accused of this.
"Guns don't kill people...
"...But they sure help!"
-Paul Giamatti, Shoot 'Em Up
Look...I know Country Music is sacred to some...
by StandardCandle
But let's face it...
There are very few country musicians that don't sing about Jesus and worship in one song...and hookin' up with a bar hussie in the next...and that's ok cause the next album has 2 songs about Jesus...3 about America...and the rest are about what to do if someone's cheatin' you or cheatin' on you.
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. " -James Madison
And that's true to life because
by jonlester
many churchgoers are exactly like that.
:) We don't judge...
by StandardCandle
We just call it how we sees it!
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. " -James Madison
Is Big 'n Rich and Toby Keith (and not even much of them, either)...
Now I think I understand, though it's not wuite what you were saying in the previous post.
Try some George Strait, Brad Paisley, Dolly Parton, Reba McIntire, Clint Black, John Michael Montgomery, Jo Dee Messina, Charlie Daniel, even Cledus T Judd...
I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
Only a tiny fraction sing about "hooking up with some bar hussy" at all. The vast majority are singing about life's ups and downs, what happens in a normal family, losing somebody you love, having a fight with the wife and making up or just being proud of who you are (can't think of her name, but "Redneck Woman" comes to mind).
"Guns don't kill people...
"...But they sure help!"
-Paul Giamatti, Shoot 'Em Up
Gretchen Wilson, Raven, is who you're thinking of nt
by BlackRepub
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.Let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."-Barry Goldwater
McCain/Rudy 08-kill the terrorists and punch the hippies.
Gretchen Wilson is right.
by swamp_yankee
Gretchen Wilson is right. She is part of the Muzik Mafia with Big and Rich and she rocks. Country singers like Dolly and Reba make my ears bleed.
By the way Toby Keith sings about all that other stuff too.
hooking up with bar floozies...
"Guns don't kill people...
"...But they sure help!"
-Paul Giamatti, Shoot 'Em Up
try some of the classics, Randy Travis, Ray Price, Patsy Cline, Eddie Arnold, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich, Charlie Pride, Merl Haggard, Willie Nelson etc.
Just call me an old fogey, but I really like that stuff a whole lot more than the modern stuff. Yeah, there are a few of the modern country artists who don't sound like bad rock and roll, but not many.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
I did say I could go on
by Raven
It was just a quick list off the top of my head...
"Guns don't kill people...
"...But they sure help!"
-Paul Giamatti, Shoot 'Em Up
of the ones i'm familiar with in your list...
by StandardCandle
i.e. Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Conway Twitty...
Seem to fall under "There are very few country musicians that don't sing about Jesus and worship in one song...and hookin' up with a bar hussie in the next...and that's ok cause the next album has 2 songs about Jesus...3 about America...and the rest are about what to do if someone's cheatin' you or cheatin' on you."
and 'ole Willie covers the drug scene mentioned previously...
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. " -James Madison
no...
by StandardCandle
but even the artists you list its not hard to google for their lyrics and prove my point.
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. " -James Madison
Thank you, 17
by Achance
I'm actually sitting for my USCG Master's test when I get back, so I'm going to be sitting in the sun studying for the most part. But, hey, at least it is in the sun, and if it snows, I won't have to shovel it.
In Vino Veritas
Dittos to all the above (nt)
by Neil Stevens
HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
We'll hold down the fort. n/t
by Vladimir
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. - Frank Zappa
Have Fun!
by The Fastest Squirrel
I'm much younger (could be your son) but I too made the long trip out of rural America. My trip involved enlisting and seeing a good chunk of the world. Man, once the genie is out of the bottle, it is hard to put him back in... though I wish, at times, that I could.
Thanks for your story.
How ya' gonna' keep them,
by Achance
down on the farm/after they've seen Paree?
My youngest is in the Army now, just went to Kosovo. He's mumbling about not re-upping. But the problem is, I don't think he'll have a clue about howw to live in the civilian world if he gets out.
In Vino Veritas
I've counseled dozens
by The Fastest Squirrel
of young soldiers over the years about getting out. My bottom line is to have a plan. Just "going to college" isn't necessarily enough. Take a look at how much he'll bring in with the GI Bill and Army College Fund (nice check every month in school full time) and if he'll need work, etc. Then strongly encourage him to have a plan to finish "on time." Those two programs only pay out for a specific number of months. Encourage him to go Guard or Reserve to minimize the impact that going back into civilian life entails (but could possibly redeploy). Also, their experience will be invaluable to the soldiers coming in...
It isn't too much to have an initial plan of what he wants to do with his life. If he doesn't know, college tuition is free while active and there are a couple of online schools that are excellent (I recommend American Military University) and will give him a chance to make some real decisions.
Now, having said that... he has the benefit of a great dad who is no doubt going to give him some excellent guidance. A lot of the guys that I know who "got out to go to school" never graduated and ended up as security guards or prison guards somewhere... not denigrating the profession... just that I believed that they were capable of more.
Anyway, I'm available through the contact page if you're interested in my experiences.
I always value. After reading your story, I know that much of my appreciation of your viewpoint is because it is one I am familiar with and largely share. Like you, I grew up in the south of the 50's and 60's and graduated high school in '69--into a world where Donna Reed and Mrs. Cleaver would have been as foreign as Easter eggs in Mecca. Like you, I experimented with, ahem, foreign substances, and rejected all the values that my folks held dear. In my case, however, I am fortunate enough to have made my peace with them as they are both still living--and absolutely astounded that I am such a staunch conservative!
Fair winds and following seas, my friend, and good luck on your test!
and hearing my mom talking about a visiting Lutheran minister's talk at our church for the women's group she belonged to. He proposed that the dinaosaur fossils that humans kept finding were put there by God as a test of mankind's faith. Would we literally believe every word in the Bible, or would we look at these fossils and question the age of the earth and the actual existence of these creatures? Even at that age, I couldn't believe in a God who larded the earth with these fossils like prizes in a Crackerjack box for no good reason.
Rebelling against authority from an early age.
Same here
by Achance
On the one hand you were asked, no, demanded, to get an education. On the other you were asked to reject things that good sense just wouldn't allow you to reject.
In Vino Veritas
I wonder
by Bob Frazier
You got me to thinking.
I wonder, if they ever found a dinosaur fossil with an arrow head stuck in the bone, would the scientific community ever tell us?
Yes, they would...
by larueladue
If that actually happened... But it would have to pass a multitude of tests first. But be assured that it would be published.
I am speaking as an ex-scientist, of sorts. It is nearly impossible to repress any sort of new findings that seriously (and I stress _seriously_) clash with accepted knowledge. Fame and fortune also motivate scientists as well...
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
-- H. H. Williams
great story, thanks for sharing
by DGaines
I still blame the boomers but hey - I'd feel better if they had all turned out like you.
Destiny Requires a Peregrinatious Spirit
by Marcus Traianus
Nothing is more dispiriting than the prepossession of low expectations. It often appears to me those making the most contribution to this country and society are those from whom much was never foreseen or expected; including ourselves.
As an aside, I have always felt the Civil War was the most horrific conflict ever fought since an "American" died in each battle, no matter who won a particular skirmish.
"Nec Aspera Terrent"
bene ambula et redambula
Contributor to The Minority Report
God bless, AChance... good read.
by jdub19
Have a relaxing vacation.
" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised
Enjoy the break- sounds like you have earned it...
by BooBooKitty
and thanks for a mini-bio that would "shock and awe" so many younger left wing ideologues who think they have conservatives pegged.
_________________
Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes
Great Read
by Whitehorse
Have a great vacation!
Funny how some think "they" have "us" pegged into little, neat holes...
I may not have the insight you do, nor be on the ground (being "outside" as I am), but I love that state as much as you (maybe more, if absence really does make the heart grow fonder).
As for your story, well, I can't say as I am a fan. We all have our periods of rebellion and mine is ongoing and may yet continue to the end of my days as I rail against the stupidity that surrounds me everyday. And stupidity, regardless of its reason, is always self-inflicted. In your case, I'm glad the things your parents taught you were enough to drag you back to your senses after a while...
"Guns don't kill people...
"...But they sure help!"
-Paul Giamatti, Shoot 'Em Up
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777