My old man tells me he left college in the 1970s and walked into a job for life. He tells me his first home cost twice the average salary. Then he tells me, without a soupçon of jest, “things were still pretty tough back then.”
His brow—unapologetically smooth for its 65 years, cheeks plumped fat and youthfully blooded from unbroken stretches of Boomer ease—fails to crumple with measured faux sympathy.
“They have it too easy,” he says, thumbing the newsprint importantly. “We didn't have iPhones when I was 30.” Tough crowd.
What kills me about my reluctant status of being a Millennial nestles between the thickets of Boomer philosophy. My old man, a cosmic improvement on the genetic one, tells me how easy everything was back in his day, and how, conversely, such ease built indomitable “character.” My old man is Schrödinger's Boomer.
Read Full Article »