The Zeppelin Generation II

When I was very young, about five years old, I occasionally would wake up at about 11:00 p.m. (my bed-time was about 8:00 p.m.), walk the long hallway to the living room and loudly ask that my mother turn the stereo down, which was blasting Led Zeppelin songs like "When the Levee Breaks" and "The Rover," along with the inevitable "Stairway to Heaven." Little did I realize that I was echoing my grandparents who pretty much had said the same thing a few years earlier; truly, I had no desire to be a little "Ike" Eisenhower being a "major bummer," and "coming down hard on a bunch of 'laid back' groove riders," such as my mother and her friends; but alas, my nerdly leaning manifested itself rather early. Still, I try to redeem myself now by saying I was five, and a five-year-old does need to sleep a lot.

Now, however, I look back on that particular memory with some nostalgia because it helps me see my mother, and everyone from my parent's generation not as parents and authority figures, but as the youth of a specific generation fixed in a specific period of time. They were the Vietnam era generation. They watched young men die in a jungle half-a-world-away during their nightly dinner (broadcast with a shocking immediacy we're not likely to ever see again). They felt oppressed by the proverbial "Man." And of course, they believed that the "revolution [would] not be televised."

There are odd intersections between the generations, and as my parents get older, I find that I may be in a position similar to the one when I was five: without saying too much, I'll just mention that unconscious expectations, the force of reality, and the circular nature of experiences through time are things that, for myself, should be reckoned with and given serious thought. Although I'm sure I'm going to have to cope with these thoughts and experiences for a long period of time, I'm going to try harder not be a "major bummer."