THE L AST ONES

 

              THE LAST ONES

  (Originally posted 6/2016)

Truth be told, most of we October/November folks have lived a charmed life. Though it hasn't always felt that way, fact is we have had a lot going for us. The following piece…. The Last Ones, makes that point very forcefully.

The essay was forwarded to me by my late friend, Don Zeh. Sadly, I don't have an author's name to credit. In any case, if you are an October or November type, chances are you will recognize the world you grew up in….the one your grandchildren can scarcely imagine. I'd be interested in hearing what you think of it.

 'THE LAST ONES,’ 

Children of the 30s & 40s…….A Short Memoir

Those of us born in the 1930s and early 40s have existed as a very special age cohort. We are the "Last Ones."  

We are the last to climb out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the war itself, when fathers and uncles went off to combat.  We are the last to remember ration books for everything from 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.  My own mother delivered milk in a horse drawn cart.

We were the last to have heard Roosevelt's radio assurances and to see gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors.  We can also remember the noisy parades on August 15, 1945…..VJ Day.

We saw the 'boys' come home from the war to build their Cape Cod style houses, pouring the concrete cellar, tar papering the flat roof, and living there until they could afford the time and money to finish their new home.

We were the last to have spent our childhood without television. Instead we imagined what we heard on the radio.  As we all like to brag about, with no TV, we spent our childhood "playing outside until the street lights came on."  Indeed, we did play outside, and we did play on our own.  There was no little league to pamper us.

The lack of television in our early years meant that most of us had little real understanding of what the world was like.  On Saturday afternoons, if we went to the movies, we saw newsreels of the war and the holocaust sandwiched  between westerns and cartoons.  In our mind newspapers and magazines were written for adults.  We were the last 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, spurring colleges to grow.  VA mortgage loans fanned a housing boom.  Pent up demand, coupled with new installment payment plans, put factories to work.  New highways brought additional jobs and mobility.  The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics. 

 In the late 40s and early 50's the country we called home seemed to lie in the embrace of a brisk but quiet order…..an environment that fostered its new middle class. Our parents understandably became absorbed with their own new lives.  They were free from the confines of the depression and the war.  They threw themselves into exploring opportunities their younger selves had never imagined.

As youngsters we were not neglected, nor were we swallowed up in what would become today's all-consuming family focus.  We were glad to play by ourselves 'until the street lights came on.'  After all, we were busy discovering our own new, post-war world.

Most of us had no conscious life plan, but with the unexpected virtue of ignorance and a rising economic tide, we simply moved on, ready to find our place.  We entered a world overflowing with plenty and opportunity….a world where we were welcomed. Based on our naïve belief that there would always be more where that came from, we shaped our life as we moved ahead. Through it all, we enjoyed an unquestioned luxury….we felt secure in our future.  

But of course, just as today, not all Americans shared that vision of a secure future.  Pockets of deep-rooted Depression poverty remained.  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.  China became Red China.  Eisenhower sent the first 'advisors' to Vietnam.  Castro set up camp in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power.

We were the last to have experienced an interlude when there were no existential threats to our homeland.  We came of age in the late 40s and early 50s.  The war was over and the cold war, terrorism, climate change, technological upheaval and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to arrive on the scene ….haunting modern life with insistent uneasiness.

Only we October/November survivors can remember both a time of apocalyptic war and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty.  We were the fortunate ones who experienced both.

We grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better not worse.

We are the 'Last Ones.'

If you are one of those "Last Ones" you might consider forwarding this to others who have shared that time and place……or the younger ones who need to know about that time.