I'll be honest. I have a hard time keeping track of population generations that used to have helpful names that made sense and carried information, like Baby Boomers. But then someone switched everything to letters that meant something to them and later, back to names.
Because typing out the whole word Generation is so hard and younger adults are unable to write cursive, we now have Gen Z and Gen X. Millennials makes some sense.
For most of my life, I've thought of myself as a Baby Boomer, more accurately, a Premature Baby Boomer, because I was born during World War II. Then, I heard I actually should have been listed as a War Baby, which makes more sense. But I've been walking around all these many years thinking of myself in the incorrect generation.
The burden and guilt! How did I make it through?
Being a War Baby Generation — oh, excuse me, Gen War — explains why my parents had only a couple of black-and-white baby photos of me. The chemicals in film were needed for explosives, I was told. So, film for the little box cameras of the day was very rare.
When someone got hold of a roll of eight negatives, they took a few of their family and then sold the others to neighbors to cover the immense costs.
There's one of me in Mom's lap at the age of five weeks. And one the next year, holding her hand in a snowy driveway wearing a nifty matching outfit obviously installed on me for the photo shoot. Who's a handsome little boy?
And that's it. Nothing of my Dad from those days.
Today, I've got scores of photos of every single grandchild just in my phone. And another one due next month. Grandchild, not phone.
So, I guess very few baby photos are a characteristic of War Babies.
Everyone probably knows that generalizations are always wrong, including generalizations about generalizations. Baby Boomers grew up in an era of relative prosperity and peace. (Thanks again, President Eisenhower.)
Baby Boomers are very numerous because men had been away a long time. Those former babies are said to be patient, loyal, hardworking, team players, and respectful of authority, at least until the Vietnam War and looming draft.
The Millennials seem to be misnamed because their alleged era (1981-1996) didn't even make it to the Millennium. But they grew up with unheard-of tech, starting with the microwave that their grandparents didn't fully trust at first and moving into cellphones and that Internet thingy.
Millennials have strong opinions without the knowledge to back them up. And they like to watch television, listen to music, dine out, and spend time with family and friends. In other words, they are pretty much just like everyone else, except they were particularly stricken when restaurants closed down during COVID.
With a precision that comes from knowing I have no other way to check, the amazing, all-knowing Internet can even tell me the weather on my long-ago Tuesday birthday at 1:36 p.m.— humid and 88 on the way to 97 that week in a rented duplex with no air-conditioning.
Then comes Gen Z, which is the subject of this week's audio commentary.
The most recent audio commentary took off on a new Gallup survey that found pride in being American sadly at a record low. You've probably got your own ideas on how and why that is. I delved into my own research and speculations. Readers/listeners left their own ideas in the Comments section, which, as always, is open here this week.
This week's Sunday column examined the development and importance of a new generation of younger, smart, and articulate surrogates for the conservative cause, especially on the Sunday morning news shows that most people don't watch.
I suspect you'll be hearing their names as leaders even after the November 5th election, if that day ever comes.
