How do we put the Boomers out to pasture?

Hey there, Brother Joe.

I just wanted to drop you a line and add my name to the long list of readers coming from out here in God's Country saying, "Keep it up, Hombre." Anybody with recommendations from Studs Terkel and Sherman Alexie is worth checking out, I suppose. Especially when he's got the balls to nail a title like Deer Hunting with Jesus.

So, like others in the chorus, I wanted to let you know about my journey down the old hog trail. I'm pretty much true blue Missouri Mule. My one set of grandparents opened up a small town meat locker and ran it for 30 years before the place burned down. Kind of lucky for the fire, actually, as that was the only way they got to retire. The other set of grandparents transplanted into West Missouri for construction work, straight out of Cherokee Country, Oklahoma. That set has bloodlines in the James Gang, and my Grandpa had some coonhounds in the movie Where the Red Fern Grows. These genes sure make things interesting, but they're the kind that's more likely to result in prison time and DWIs than PhDs.

We all lived out in the plains and creek bottoms of Missouri, working class through and through. My Dad was the butcher at the meat locker for about twenty years, and we lived in a trailer and tried to live out his dream of starting a farm. He's always had this notion of being part of the rural ruling class, nobody's real sure where that comes from, but it's always there. Mom raised us up good and right, and then she went to work at convenience stores and a Pizza Hut once we got school aged. They married shot-gun style when they was in high school thanks to the early arrival of my older brother. Woops. Since then, Dad got a union job at a power plant and Mom hired on with the Post Office. Things have gotten pretty good for them in recent years.

So, I got lucky for some reason and everybody always told me that I should go off to college. That's not the family norm, mind you, but they just kind of expected it so that's what happened. My big brother and I both went to the big university over in Columbia. That's where you're supposed to go to be part of rural elite, in case you didn't know. Being that nobody in our family had ever been to university before (there had been a bit of college somewhere according to family lore) they were expecting some kind of lawyer or doctor to come out of the whole deal. Maybe a politician even.

Well, I've since disappointed the whole lot of them with my odd career as a writer, community organizer and general peacenik hell raiser. I got me a wife from the big city and we settled here in Columbia, which is pretty much like Charlottesville over in your neck of the woods. Only we don't have Monticello, we just wish we did. But then, there's Mark Twain and all of his glory. Although he left and moved to Connecticut for some reason unknown to the locals.

Back to point. I wanted to say you've nailed the situation pretty much dead on around here, especially as it relates to politics. The Dems are a bunch of chicken shit pansies, and the Repubs are just out there trying to convince themselves that Jesus loves rich white people who torture and hate the rest of the world. My family is full of fundies who lie to their wives about going to the Nudie Bar. I remember when you were 18, pal, and you didn't have much thought for abstinence like you expect your kids too now. Are all of you Baby Boomers this looney? What happened anyway?

Somewhere between Otis Redding and the Bee Gees, things really fell apart. Freedom Summer and the Summer of Love are a sight to behold for us all. But now you've all raised a bunch of video game playing zombies that can't even make room for a man pulling a couple of young kids in a bike and bike trailer on the way to the park. The parks are pretty much empty by the way, except for the black and Latino kids whose parents give them the free reign of the city to actually experience life. Good kids, really. They just have a limited vocabulary. We're working on it, though.

So, any words of wisdom related to the total collapse of a generation would be helpful. We're inheriting your shit storm (not just yours, I know), and I'm looking for the appropriate umbrella. Can we bring back the Black Panthers or something to shake things up? Cancel Social Security for a couple of decades?

Drop some wisdom, Joe. What's the best way to put the Boomers out to pasture so they don't destroy us all?

Maybe it happens to all of us. But it doesn't seem like my grandparents or anyone in there whole gang became a bunch of judgmental asses as they aged.

Bryce,
In the heart of Missouri

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Bryce,

I certainly do not have any words of wisdom for a man who is looking at the very same world I am, and drawing the same conclusions and coming up against the same non sequiters. But it warms the burned-out old cockles of my heart (whatever the hell cockles are) to know you are out there.

In friendship,

Joe