Back In The Day, My A**

Baby Boomers seem to think about the past a lot. We long for the good old days. I don’t. But I hear it a lot, especially from boomers at or near the leading edge of the bulge. If we are the generation that changed the world for the better, why would we want to go back to when it was worse?

I hear the phrase “back in the day” often, mostly from 36-year-olds dealing with being closer to 40 than 30. Sometimes 20-somethings say it. But why? C’mon! A 20-year-old doesn’t have a past! Back in their day, they were ten! At least a 36-year-old can long for high school, puberty, their first sexual encounter with someone other than themselves, zits, Top Gun and a time when multi-tasking meant eating a burger while watching The Cosby Show.

Boomers who say “back in the day” sound like they’re trying to sound like Gen-Xers. More often, boomers say “I remember when.” They/we are usually referring to an era when things seemed better. I remember when gas cost 36 cents a gallon. I remember when Jimi Hendrix was alive. I remember hot pants.

I say “seemed” better because I’m not sure 1968 – 1972, for example, is a span of years I’d return to if time travel was possible. Because I remember when my high school class of ’68 was all white because the one black freshman four years earlier got tired of the harassment and quit. I remember the Viet Nam “conflict.” I remember King and Kennedy getting killed. I remember that Dad’s car got 12 miles per gallon. I remember when it was a big deal to have a “gal” in charge of something. I remember when Tricky Dick was president. I remember being paid a 4-figure annual salary for my first full time job.

Don’t get me wrong. Good things came out of that era too. The beginning of equal rights for women and minorities, the end of Viet Nam, greater accountability for public officials, increased caring for planet Earth. Led Zeppelin.

My feeling is that the past is a learning lab, an example of how to do or not do something, a security blanket, a smile or a tear. I drive the streets of my home town and picture what it was like living there, but I always come home to where I live now. My second-favorite radio station plays 60s and 70s pop and rock songs and feels safe, but my favorite station plays simple, contemporary, story-telling country songs and feels safer. I prefer email to letters, XP to Smith-Corona, Rosemont Estates to Boones Farm. A restored ’66 Mustang costs the same as a brand new ’06 – I’ll take the ’06 because it corners better, is more fuel-efficient, and has seat belts. The only thing I really prefer from the past is a slower pace of life; multi-tasking is somewhat overrated. But I think I can learn to make both work in the present by studying the past.

If you hear me say “back in the day,” please acknowledge my sense of irony in that choice of words. If you hear me say “I remember when,” please slap me.

The past is a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.