BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 22

Subject: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 22
From: Peter T.
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 07:03 AM

It happened that, as a child, I preferred hanging around my parents' generation of people to my own (as I then thought) miserable age group. I liked their style, the cantankerous bits as well as the glorious. But I particularly liked their way of looking at the world, or, how I can put it, the tone with which they carried themselves.   The only real drawback to this experience was the fact that they are now all dead and gone -- the last of those I really knew died a week ago. He was a soldier in WWII, like so many of that generation, and smoked into his eighties, and to his death had a little of what my mother used to call that "Clark Gable in 'It Happened One Night'" feel about him. People have gone on and on about that generation, so you would think it was captured pretty completely. But what sobers me is that, in spite of all the books and movies, there is nevertheless something intangible about the way he and they lived that is gone, and that cannot be recovered. There must have been a point in their lives when the same thing happened to them -- some tone to life that their parents' generation had that has disappeared. We cannot really know what it was like to have been an Edwardian. But I think I have some slight feel for what it was like to be part of the generation that flourished after about 1925. I suppose part of my homage to my parents' generation is to remember that way of living as best I can; that it was a privilege to know them; and also to keep in mind as I read the histories of many other different pasts further back that the essential part -- the feel of how they lived -- is not available to me, and to respect that, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 22
From: Amos
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 10:12 AM

Beautifully said. I have often pondered on the very flavour you describe, the tone of a time, the agreements on what right living needed to be, the humor and courage that marked the best of them. As an agre-group I am sure they had their share of nutballs and neer-do-wells, but I never met many of those.   

A

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 22
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 11:51 AM

We can glean glimpses of it in their writings, esp. in any current letters and oral histories. There's quite a chronicle of one of them, my dad's old friend, Floyd Coleman; a lot of experiences which I am sure shaped who he became. As of now, his latest goal is to be the oldest surviving WWII veteran. He's 94, rebuilds vintage autos and takes no medications...I think he'll make it! i love getting letters from him. Curmudgeonly, but still a gentleman.

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 22
From: John Hardly
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 11:59 AM

That generation (seems to me) knew better than ours to not worry about what others thought of them if they were sure they were doing the right thing. And they worried VERY MUCH what others thought of them if they were doing the wrong thing.

We came away from knowing them, confused. We somehow gathered (in the observation) that we should not worry about what others thought of us no matter what we were doing. And that if we were really sure we were doing the wrong thing, by dragging more people down with us, it somehow became less wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 22
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 12:12 PM

I had a rather similar experience, Peter. I was much more comfortable with older people than with my own age group when I was in my teens. That changed a bit, though, from about age 21 as I got very much involved in the whole "60's" sensibility...the music...the antiwar movement. I still remained frustrated, though, with the superficiality of my own generation and their daily concerns which mostly revolved around partying and dating and dope.

Most of my view of life had been formed, actually, by an even earlier generation than that of my parents, since I was a book reader rather than a TV watcher, and most of the books I had been reading came from the time of Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, H. Ryder Haggard, Kipling, and other such writers. I developed a very romantic and idealized view of life, and I found myself way out of sync with most of my contemporaries. If they were reading anything it was more likely to be Jacqueline Susan or Ayn Rand or Harold Robbins or Stephen King or some other popular fiction like that...(the modern American popular novel?) At any rate, they were reading stuff that I despised. ;-)

I was fascinated by history. Most of the young people I knew thought history was boring.

I share your appreciation of the Edwardian generation. They had a lot of style and they also had a great deal of idealism and a pretty keen sense of honor. That's good to see in people.

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 22
From: Amos
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 12:25 PM

John Hardly:

A scintillating insight. Thanks.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Thought for the Day -- Aug 22
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 04:19 PM

I learned to not worry so much about what others thought, but I don't think I learned it from my parents' generation. I did learn to feel good about myself and to have self-confidence from them AND to NOT drag others with me if I did something wrong. So a bit different.

I also really enjoyed the older folks and was alone much of the time as a child as my nearest siblings were six years older with the other two twelve and sixteen years older. I loved visiting with my great aunts, aunts, uncles, grandma and my mom and dad's friends. I've kept that connection up all of my life.

I think that generation his a lot of their worry and I think some of it came upon them because of the depression. I believe my mom died because of worry, so that's something I really try NOT to do in my life.