Well, you know, I’m not really all that cranky. I am a life-long cynic, something that receives reinforcement on a daily basis. I try not to be that way because at the same time, I often find myself to be one of the more optimistic voices in the room. It wasn’t always so. I think I have, unexpectedly, become less cranky in my old age. Although I despair at the repeating of foolishness in government and by the young, I can now keep it from eating at me.

          We Boomers are kind of a cranky bunch anyway. Ask any member of any other generation that has to work with us. Our sheer numbers meant there was always a waiting line everywhere we went. That fostered our desire for efficiency. We get pissed off when there’s a line waiting and the people at the front are chatting. It’s not necessarily that we are in a hurry, we just are affronted at the inefficiency of it. (You’ve been waiting line for crissakes, how can you not have figured out what sandwich you want?)

          There have been several articles of late talking about how the Boomers are suffering from depression at higher rates than other generations, about how we are more suicidal than other generations, that type of stuff. All the experts have their opinions on this. Things like,

          1)We don’t like aging (well, who would?)

          2) We worry about both our aging parents and our irresponsible children (I    think they call us a “sandwich” generation- who’d have thought I’d use the          word “sandwich” twice in one essay?)

          3) We have anxiety about retirement (don’t- it’s great)

          But you know, it’s not really as deep as all that. I think it’s pretty simple. In the movie, The Natural (I refer specifically to the movie, you know, with Redford. Not the book. The book, by Bernard Malamud is also good, but a very different story than the movie. It doesn’t have the movie’s essential optimism), at one point Redford’s character, Roy Hobbs says “Things sure turned out different.” When asked how he just shrugs and repeats, “different.” It’s like that for us Boomers. Youth is idealistic and should be. We wanted to change the world for the better and thought we would. From the Peace Corps to Earth Day to ending the draft to Civil Rights we felt we were part of positive change. And that it was on a roll. But a few things happened over the course. Those of us who remained idealistic (with perhaps a little cynicism added in) saw change slowing down and even saw some of the same old evils coming back. Others of us, due to the realities dealt along the way, had to forbear some of those ideals and held our noses and became part of the Establishment we’d held the line against in our younger days. So, we tended to either feel we hadn’t made our goal or we’d sold out. Not that any of us would say that out loud. Remember, Boomers are tough, driven, realists. Despite our sometime portrayal as Flower Children, most of us are not really that touchy-feely. There it is again, that touch of cynicism.

          So anyway, with our lifelong experience of someone always getting there ahead of you, there always being a waiting line, everybody else around you always needing something from you (“My car needs tires” “The nursing home people lost my hearing aids”), and the nagging suspicion that things just really ought to be better; well a little crankiness seems justified. Don’t you think?