Page 100 - People & Places In Time

War & Remembrance
Nearly every generation has its own conflicts to sort through. Though, as I say this, it seems cliché. Yes, of course there are situations with broader implications than others. But for each of us the issues we face at any moment will present what seems at the time to be the worst that could happen.
For my parent’s generation, WWI was not a concern to four and five-year-old children, it was for another generation. As nineteen and twenty-year-old’s and recent high school graduates they will grow up in
a similar post-war prosperity that I will experience in another twenty-five years. Their generation experienced the excitement of a new style of music, clothes and dance steps emerging throughout the Roaring 20’s.
But then, suddenly the stock market crash and depres- sion became far more pressing and would affect their lives for many years to come. As for my mother, she had begun college at the University of San Francisco but had to return to Fresno State to complete college. Perhaps not a big deal when compared to the difficulties so many others faced, it was still a consequence of this time in her life.
By the end of the 1930’s they had moved on from high school, college and the depression, life once again had regained the promise of a future, a reason to look forward. Dad and Mom were married in the spring of 1941 and began to set their course to-
ward building careers, a home and fam-
ily together. Then the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor hastening the United States
into WWII. This commitment would
likely have happened sooner or later, but
the Japanese invasion became a defining
moment for the twenty something men
and women of the time. Not to mention
the newest generation coming of age out
of high school.
My father didn’t hesitate, he joined the Army and was quickly off to Fort Ord for training and shortly thereaf- ter, to North Africa and Italy for two and a half years. He returned home with a Silver Star for bravery.
These are the situations that change people for a lifetime. As for me, this war likely determined that I was born in July of 1945 instead of earlier. Lucky to be born at all . . . . lucky that my father returned to resume a life with Mom that had been cut short three years earlier.
The post war years of the 1940’s and 50’s became a peaceful and prosperous time, as so often happens following periods of war and uncertainty.
My parents and others embraced this time, and these became the years that define my childhood, a time that lasted into my early teenage years. All this took place during the best of times that anyone could hope for. A peaceful and happy time, that today, many in this gen- eration of baby boomers (technically I was six months short of being a baby boomer) would dearly love to reclaim. Everyone has a time they might wish to return too, except; I find this becomes a dilemma, not unlike when I’ve taken a photograph, one that I really like, and then, when I return to the same spot at a later date it’s impossible to find the same picture. We can never re- turn to the home we remember; it isn’t there any longer.
As we approach the 1960’s a scarcely notice- able but non-the-less real change has begun to reshape what remained of our decade and a half of sheltered ease. This had been a time, that for me, I wish every child could know a time of learning, playing and
growing up without concern before the real- ity of life steps in . . . as it does for us all.
General Dwight Eisenhower had been the perfect president to lead through the previous decade of prosperity; one driven by the men who had fought under him. In 1960 an inspirational John Kennedy seemed to be the president we needed to lead for the next decade. We were progressing to- ward high school graduation from there, who knew where life continued good, our future looked bright.
The Times They are changing
That subtle change I spoke of is starting to reveal itself through my generation just as we are poised to enter this new decade in
our lives. Jazz and Blues music styles had been around for a long time, two singularly American styles spanning generations. But their influence on popular music had evolved, such that now, as we leave the 1950’s, Rock and Roll is set to burst full force into the 60’s, as if the heartbeat of a new culture, one for which it seemed destined to go hand in hand.
Music has often served as a wedge not unlike the 1920’s between the old and new genera- tions. Yet I’ve often wondered if this emerging style
was even more divisive than previous culture breaks? I don’t know for sure, but it seems so, as I look back. Elvis Presley, the Beatle’s or Bob Dylan; could they have been the catalyst of change? Or were they like the rest of us, caught up in the momentum of change?
Is all this, just what happens with each genera- tion? Again, I don’t know. Yet as I give this some more thought. There’s no denying that Glenn Miller and Vera
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