A tale of a Baby Boom life. |
Generation A child of the Baby Boom The Cold War The Ozzie and Harriet world Of Howdy Doody And Sky King The black and white eye On the hardwood floor. All the grownups smoked Endlessly and played cards. A wonder bread world of Tree shaded sidewalks In small town America Reality impinged with Shifting scenes A parade of schools Overflowing school buses A neighborhood of raw earth Cinder blocks and raw lumber Kids everywhere And still too often alone. A white world with A new young president And his pretty wife An uncle circling Cuba As my parents stared endlessly At news that they seemed Not to want to hear Dallas on TV after school The world weeping Seeing Jack Ruby shoot Oswald John-John saluting Making my mother sob aloud. Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz The Mysterious Island Steps to the Stars Red Planet Black people marching On the news singing hymns Met with nightsticks and firehoses. King with his soaring Mesmerizing voice The ringing rhetoric of a Dream Another shooting and More madness Cities burning A long season of rage. Then the War grew endless reports With the troops Eventually becoming a body count At the end of the news ‘and that’s the way it is…’ Catch 22 Catcher in the Rye. Stranger in a Strange Land The Beat goes on My Generation White Rabbit All Along the Watchtower (Can’t Get No) Satisfaction And the madness too 'Neck deep in the big muddy And the big fool said to push on…' Sex and drugs and rock and roll And never trust anyone over 30 Looking for 3 days of Peace and Love It was so important then And trying to make it right Jackson State Kent State The Days of Rage After tricky Dick expanded the War Beer and wine And learning the costs Trying to survive the madness With madness Having a friend hallucinate In the cafeteria of high school Whose superintendent turned down anti-drug money Because there was 'no drug problem here' Learning to drink whiskey Descending into smoky dives Full of thunderous music Occasionally even good music. A wandering wavering trip ‘And a long strange trip it’s been..’ The times they are a changing.. Since then I have learned Many hard won lessons, Neither to quickly nor too well. As to the madness which seemed Always to impinge I just don’t know. The times are still a changing, But they don’t seem to be any Less full of madness. |