CHILDREN OF THE GREATEST GENERATION

I would like to share this interesting  writing below about us, people of the greatest generation, from anywhere in the world, and how OUR WORLD HAS CHANGED SINCE.

I was born in early 1940 in Germany, WWII had already begun, my father went with the 6th Armee to Russia on the ill-fated, ill-prepared move on Stalingrad. Most of the men did not make it there, freezing to death and left behind on the side of the road. My father was one of them. We never learned what happened to him. He just vanished.  Post-war Germany was, in many ways, worse than the war itself. Although, when the bombing by Allied forces began, our entire village was evacuated and shipped to safety in the Eastern mountains, many of the families had nothing. We all had to learn, even the children, to make do with what we had, what we could barter and how to survive. As a child, I had just a few used toys and trinkets my mother got from friends, who were better off. My clothes was mended, reversed and re-invented. We worked for food and my first chocolate came from American soldiers, so did oranges and bananas. I worked at an early age to afford myself a trip somewhere.  We survived and the experience made us strong, so we could endure almost anything.

The generation, the  so-called millennials and the one before, have been spoiled to no end; “no” is not an option for parents; “thank you” has gone by the wayside; we have created “nanny” states, “it is someone else’s fault”, and “you owe me”, working is not necessarily a desirable position to be in, especially, when your government condones it in the form of food stamps, welfare checks etc.

The world has been “watered” down by political correctness and at the same time lost its moral values. Marriages are not between a man and a woman. Men become women, women become men, the so-called transgender period, women are promiscuous, men take sexual liberties, called assaults, disrespect is spelled with a capital ‘D’ and police departments are sued for trying to keep order (as in the case now in Phoenix, AZ, where the ACLU has complained about the police fighting off protest groups while Trump was visiting. What is typically NOT reported is the fact, that George Soros finances Anti-American, Fascist groups like  ANTIFA, a violent opposing protester, who travel to all “trouble” spots for the simple reason to cause havoc and damage to peoples’ properties and act violently.

I am especially troubled to see the change in America since my arrival in 1977. It was pretty much a whole world, where one could leave doors unlocked, visit neighbors at all times, helping one another, making fast friends and where YOU could talk to different  politically oriented people. without getting into fights. We have become an angry, hateful society, where the MEDIA IS THE MAIN CULPRIT for creating animosities. And, of course, social media, where one can publish anything that reaches the world in seconds, has not made it better in many regards. On the other hand, however, we have all now a voice, be it a good or bad one.

And then, life never stays the same, progress is progress as the politicians call it. We have to realize that many things in our daily lives have improved greatly over the decades, no doubt, but we, the generation talked about in the article below, still have lived in the best of times in spite of wars and great tragedies.

I am glad that I am not young anymore, also a song by French chansonnier, Maurice Chevalier. 

“CHILDREN OF THE GREATEST GENERATION (and their children – so they will understand)”

Born in the 1930s and early 40s, we exist as a very special
age cohort. We are the Silent Generation.
We are the smallest number of children born since the
early 1900s. We are the “last ones.”
We are the last generation, climbing out of the depression,
who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world
at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.
We are the last to remember ration books for everything
from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.
We saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans.
We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available.
We can remember milk being delivered to our house early in the
morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch.
We are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of our
grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War.
We saw the ‘boys’ home from the war, build their little houses.
We are the last generation who spent childhood without
television; instead, we imagined what we heard on the radio.
As we all like to brag, with no TV, we spent our childhood
“playing outside”.
We did play outside, and we did play on our own.
There was no little league.
There was no city playground for kids.
The lack of television in our early years meant, for most of
us, that we had little real understanding of what the world was like.
On Saturday afternoons, the movies, gave us newsreels of
the war sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.
Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party Lines)
and hung on the wall.
Computers were called calculators, they only added and were
hand cranked; typewriters were driven by pounding fingers,
throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.
The ‘internet’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that did not exist.
Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the
news was broadcast on our table radio in the evening by
Gabriel Heatter.
We are the last group who had to find out for ourselves.
As we grew up, the country was exploding with growth.
The G.I. Bill gave returning veterans the means to get an
education and spurred colleges to grow.
VA loans fanned a housing boom.
Pent up demand coupled with new installment
payment plans put factories to work.
New highways would bring jobs and mobility.
The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.
The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands of stations.
Our parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression
and the war, and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities
they had never imagined.
We weren’t neglected, but we weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus
They were glad we played by ourselves until the street lights came on.
They were busy discovering the post war world.
We entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a
world where we were welcomed.
We enjoyed a luxury; we felt secure in our future.
Depression poverty was deep rooted.
Polio was still a crippler.
The Korean War was a dark presage in the early 50s and by
mid-decade school children were ducking under desks for
Air-Raid training.
Russia built the “Iron Curtain” and China became Red China .
Eisenhower sent the first ‘advisers’ to Vietnam.
Castro set up camp in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power.
We are the last generation to experience an interlude when
there were no threats to our homeland.
We came of age in the 40s and 50s. The war was over
and the cold war, terrorism, “global warming”, and
perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease..
Only our generation can remember both a time of great
war, and a time when our world was secure and full of bright
promise and plenty.
We have lived through both.
We grew up at the best possible time, a time when
the world was getting better. not worse.
We are the Silent Generation – “The Last Ones”
More than 99 % of us are either retired or deceased, and
we feel privileged to have “lived in the best of times”!