Baby Boomers – How Far We Have Come!
Were you born between 1946 and 1964? So, like my husband and I, you are one of the nearly 75 million Americans of the Baby Boomer generation. Think of all the changes you have seen!
You were born just after the end of WWII, you saw the Korean War begin and end, and you were there when the Vietnam War was being fought. You were born during the term of one of these US presidents: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower (remember “I like Ike), John F. Kennedy (” Camelot “) or Lyndon Johnson (” Great society “). New car by Only $ 1,400 and gas for that car was 21 cents a gallon and milk 70 cents a gallon You could even buy a new home for $ 12,500 – with that amount, you can barely rent a house for a year!
Those were the days when families were more numerous and lived closer to each other. The grandparents were close. The aunts and uncles were close. Family vacation dinners often featured a large table packed with food and people. When he went on a family picnic to the lake, he didn’t worry about locking his house when he went out or locking his car when he was at the lake. The children were allowed to go outside to play without their parents worrying about them.
But the world has changed since then. Some changes have been good and some not so good. In the “good old days” we had to wash clothes with a washing machine and hang them on the clothesline to dry. We now have washers and dryers that are electronic and can wash and dry themselves. Can we buy a house for $ 12,500 now? Not hard, we can’t even buy a good lot to put up a house for that amount of money. Median Home Price in the US Is Now $ 300,000! A new car costs about $ 30,000 and gasoline almost $ 2.50 a gallon. Good and bad, we have seen a lot of changes.
What about entertainment back then? At the beginning of our Boomer generation, hardly anyone owned a television. Sitting listening to the radio was a common nighttime occupation. When he got his first television, he needed “bunny ears” or an antenna to fetch a local station. Now, watching TV means watching a cable channel or even playing a game with your Xbox or PlayStation. Telephones used to be large black monsters that sat on the hall table or hung on a wall. You shared your phone line with other people, which is why it was called a “shared line.” Phones are now pocket-sized, run from a satellite tower, and act like a computer. Now that I think about it, computers, which did not exist in the form of a “personal computer” at the beginning of the boom generation, are found in the homes of most Americans today. All of these changes have led Americans to get instant information on activities around the world. Are these changes better or not? Sometimes we tend to think that we are in “information overload.” I think the first time I saw so much information on a single topic was when President Kennedy was assassinated. If you are a Boomer, you probably remember exactly where you were and what you were doing on that date. I was in elementary school, reading our Bible History book aloud when the Nun, who was the convent’s cook, came in and told our Nun what had happened. We all kneel and pray. Now that I think about it, even prayer has disappeared from our schools in the name of “political correctness.”
The world of instant information has brought with it information that gives us opportunities to think and fear for our safety. Random attacks happen all over the world and we begin to wonder if we are safe somewhere. Our children die in schools. People die in shopping malls. There are random shots in almost every community. Entire families are devastated by these losses. We care about our families and how we can protect them.
Do we need to carry weapons? Tea gun laws They are so devious that if we use a weapon in self-defense, we face the possibility of a lawsuit. Perhaps we should consider non-lethal options like stun guns or pepper spray or even loud alarms or lights, to stop an attack. The choice is yours.
So Baby Boomers have seen a lot of changes in their years. Some have been good and some have been bad. We see the need to keep our families safe from different dangers of which we knew in the past. But, as we have always done, we will adapt!
I’ll be back with more information and safety ideas for us Baby Boomers. Hope to see you then.