This year, the youngest members of the Baby Boomer generation will turn 59 and the eldest Boomers will be 77.

As the name of the generation suggests, those born in the years between 1947 (a period of post-WWII prosperity) and 1964 (the year the birth control pill hit the market) were products of the nation’s highest sustained birth rates. In fact, Boomers are tied for the largest percent of living Americans at 30 percent, the same percentage as Millennials (those born after 1980).

I was born in 1959, so to me Boomers are “we” and “our.”

As a group, we remain a force to be reckoned with, but we cannot deny that our ranks are thinning. That point is driven home especially when we lose those whose work was the soundtrack of our lives. Although not technically boomers, the recent passing of Jeff Beck (Jan. 10)  and David Crosby (Jan. 18)  are immediately identifiable with the generation and the music  that began to come of age in the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s.

When the history of the Baby Boomer generation is written, it will likely be best remembered as The Rise of the Teen, both as mass-consumers, but as opinion-shapers in politics and culture in a way that no previous generation had attained. Post-WWII America’s economic boom put money into the pockets of teens and it didn’t take long for merchandisers to catch on.

The Boomer generation will be also noted for the revolution in popular music, especially the genre that was born in that generation – rock-and-roll. What the oldest members of the Boomer generation spent their money on as teens were records, so it’s not surprising that the explosion of rock-and-roll came at a time when teens were flexing their spending muscles.

It will also be remembered as the era of the social movements that changed the political/cultural landscape of the nation and the world. The foot soldiers of the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Gay Rights and Anti-War movements were, by and large, the teen-aged Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1957 or thereabouts. The music of the generation was the music of those movements. “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree” gave way to “Four Dead in Ohio.”

It was a marvelous generation — wildly creative, innovative, socially-aware, unconventional, unorthodox, unapologetic — and unsustainable, as it turned out.

Now we are graying, a bit grumpy, inexplicably more conservative than anyone might ever have imagined (32 percent of us identify as conservative). The generation that warned each other, “Don’t trust anyone over 30,” doesn’t trust anyone under 50.

The final indignity?

“OK, Boomer.”

It’s a dismissive phrase we hear from the younger generations when they are exasperated by our generation’s suspicion of anything new (especially technology).

What the hell happened to us? Disco, among other things.

The generation that would think nothing of hitch-hiking alone across country to go to a rock concert, hoping the total stranger who picked us up had some LSD or — the least — weed, is afraid of TikTok and Instagram. Artificial Intelligence terrifies us. That’s what the LSD was for in our day.

It’s kinda of sad, really, what we’ve come to.

We got off to a helluva start, but got distracted somewhere along the way.

Still, all in all, I think we Boomers have had a pretty good run.

The music of our generation proves the point.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

READER FAVORITES

• 

  Our View: Why The Dispatch is embracing philanthropy to amplify local news

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 2 days ago

• 

  Roses and Thorns: 7-11-26

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 2 days ago