Not My Generation

By Jeffrey J. Williams. One of my colleagues went to Woodstock and another lived in Haight-Ashbury in 1969. While they’ve cut their hair since, they’re obviously baby boomers, and they sometimes tell me stories about protesting the Vietnam War, smuggling dope, and seeing Bob Dylan in concert. The strange thing is that I’m supposedly a baby boomer, since I was born in December 1958, but their stories recount a distant world. I only vaguely remember Vietnam on the news, have no memory of JFK, and find Bob Dylan grating. The events that made an impression on me were the Watergate hearings, stagflation, and the Carter and Reagan presidencies. Our music was different, too—OK, let’s forget Journey, but in our early 20s, we raised our lighters to some remarkable bands, like U2, the Cure, and, born in my year, Prince and Madonna. Read more...