Generational Tweener Gappers

The title refers to both the Generation Gap made popular in the 60s/70s when the Vietnam War/Civil rights drove stakes through parent-child relations and the 90s-to-now Tweener category of parents squeezed between needy children and aging (needy) parents.

My parents are gone and kids on their own, but being the bridge over troubling waters continues just living in the rocket ship of time called the 21st century when things change almost faster than you can buy them and confuse minds from a slower era that allowed adjustment time to get used to and learn new things. The gap can become an unbridgeable chasm without us.

Badger Pass, Yosemite, winter 2104.

I took this photo during the two weeks of snow in Yosemite this year because I see in it the wondrous variety of trees, even of the same variety, which fascinates me. Growing in close proximity but slightly different conditions, some grow straight and tall, others curve a little, then straighten out, others grow straight, then curve, then swing back to straight and some just let go and serpentine their way toward the sun. The straight trunk in the background is the older generation, with subsequently more free form trunks showing youthful spirit as they get nearer  the camera.

OK, that's my flight of fancy, but there is no doubt that being 64 (and more) assigns you a place in the middle, the straight-then freeform curve-era of old and new, trail following and trail blazing, not just between parents and children, but everyone, really.

I am in a choir where the 75+ members are proud of not being in the 21st century. They do not want to use computers or smart phones, which means the only communication is land line and snail mail, which means they can't keep up with rapid change like a change of time or cancellation date unless they are home and near their phone. I have described the wonders of smart phones, and they are amazed and briefly consider how convenient it would be to get an email telling them of a new gig, a contact list of members or a map to a new destination, but it is fleeting. They are secure in their known world and wish to remain that way.

The younger (65 and less) members are happy to surf for directions, open to new gigs and available instantly to discuss change.

The challenge of pleasing both falls to those of us in the middle who remember days when what you bought worked and if it didn't you took it back and they apologized and gave you a new one. We accept that that is over. We work with products that don't seem to work and keep at it until we find a workaround to get them to do what they're supposed to do (starting with reboot).

I don't know when I started being intimidated by computers. I got one of the first laptops (before they were called that) to write my news stories at council meetings and send them in via a suction cup and phone receiver. It had 7k memory, which I boosted to 14k so I could write two stories on it.  I moved on to the workhorse Tandy 1000, which taught millions of us how to compute until outstripped and overshadowed by upstart (now called startup) companies. Since products lasted years or more back then, I plugged on with it until my boys begged for a newer version. When I finally caved in, I was several generations behind and it was then, I think, that intimidation crept in, because the new versions came with no instructions and I got lost in the confounding upgrades.

I have since regained some control of my electronic devices from smart phone to laptops to tablets, but I still dislike upgrades, which some apps do constantly while others update without requiring me to learn a whole new system.  I prefer the latter but deal with the former.

This all enables me to understand why my mother, and others of hers and similar generations, do not embrace digital delights. They remember times when you were granted time, all that you wanted, to learn something new without the hurry-up-and-Get-It of now. My sons have taught me to try to figure out my problems first, and only call when I am stuck. This has made me much more proficient at solving problems online as well as saving them the time of redoing what I've already tried (like reboot).

The hours I spend getting things to work as they should on line are frustrating, even enraging, but they've made me lose my fear of computers and relegate them to the machines they are, knowing I can get them to do what I want using my amazing human brain - or my boys', should I fail.

The older generation does not want the hours of frustration, the feeling of incompetence, the weeks of learning, the daily nuisance of things that don't work the way you want, but which you can't take back.

And I understand that.

Along with the younger generation, that accepts this as a given and sails through updates, upgrades and new iterations every 6 months. Change is not something to fear, but to embrace (did they finally fix the bugs this time?) They can be brisk with the older members, especially when things can't happen quickly and easily. We in the middle soothe feathers on both sides.

So we mail maps and newsletters to the oldsters and post emails to the younguns. It's the way things are when you are a bridge between troubled waters. It is sometimes funny, often frustrating, but totally worth it, because all of us trees make the forest of our choir richer and more interesting.

Confusion in the Ranks

I am past 64 now, so remember even longer ago than the title of my blog suggests. It's too much trouble to change the title, so I leave it, with apologies to anyone that that ruffles.

I have also lived outside the United States of America for nearly half that life, so when I come home, it's been fun finding the things have have changed. One of those brought up memories of grammar school (when it was still called that because they actually taught grammar back then), when students would stand up at the beginning of the school day, put their hands over their hearts, recite the Pledge of Allegience and then sing the National Anthem.

I was invited to a women's club meeting just yesterday after my yoga class got cancelled when nobody showed up and the woman on the recombinant bike next to my treadmill started to leave and offered to pay for my lunch (I find free food irresistible) if I wanted to go. Off I went in my yoga outfit covered with a long green fleece sweater from Canada. No one gave me a second look, they were too busy having fun, bless their hearts.

I was only slightly jarred when they stood up to start the meeting and then all turned to the front. I thought it was for a prayer, but it was to recite the Pledge. I cannot recall the last time I was anywhere that did this. Like an old racehorse - or dog - I promptly placed my right hand over my heart and recited along, stumbling only over "indivisible" - not a word you hear often these days.

The ladies then swung into a rousing rendition of...God Bless America. Not the National Anthem, which is a challenge to sing even in grammar school, I admit, but still it's the country's official song. What got me was that some of the ladies kept their hands over their hearts while singing, as if the song is official, like the Pledge, or a stand in for the Anthem. I wasn't sure what to do, not knowing what changes had been made since the last time I lived in the States. I was pretty sure I would have heard if the Star Spangled Banner had been changed, and there seemed no reason to honor God Bless America with a hand pledge, so I sang with my hand hovering in the vicinity of my heart, not wanting to offend anyone.

Today my brother forwarded an email attachment about the Pledge. Coming so quickly on top of my reintruduction to it yesterday, I was curious. Seems the version I first learned in school did not contain the currently-controversial phrase "under God," as that was officially added in 1954. That was the fourth and final (to date) change to the 122-year-old text. Baptist minister Francis Bellamy composed it for a youth magazine to promote patriotic passions in the populace in 1892, focusing on the youth in the schools. He was - and I was frankly taken aback at this - a Christian socialist. I'm pretty sure there are no Baptists today who would cotton to being called a Christian socialist.

Mr. Bellamy wanted something quick that promoted allegience to America, and he choose his words carefully, including "republic" as more accurate than country or nation and leaving out equality or fraternity because those would not apply to blacks or women in 1892. So it seems the Pledge is one of the first examples of the power of advertising - schools that recited it could buy flags at cost and were urged to post flags to which the Pledge could be recited each morning, inspiring patriotism. Children even saluted it with a Nazi-style arm raise, which was changed to the hand-over-heart for the kids and everybody in 1942.

There's more, but I am impressed all this has happened over this small, originally 15-second pledge to the flag of our country, and the republic for which it stands (this was created for grammar schools, after all). Whether to redact the last change of "one nation 'under God,' ' to return to "one nation indivisible" - which referred to the Revolution and Civil Wars which jumpstarted the country - is under current consideration.

That the United States of America is the only county, other than the Phillipines, which copied us, to have and at times required and expected its populace, particularly its children, to daily pledge their allegience to its flag and the nation behind it, is something I never thought about.

I have now. I remember when it meant something. When the sight of the flag, Old Glory, send shivers through me, when I looked for it among others and was thrilled when I saw it. Apparently, 45 of the states allow school students time for the Pledge (and anthem, I suppose) in the mornings; individual school boards and schools determine what they will do during that time. I have no figures on how many still recite the Pledge. I'm not sure how thrilled our young citizens are when they see the Star Spangled Banner waving.

As they say, we've been good and we've been bad. We've been great and we've been dismal. We've set standards at the highest order and brought them down, too. We are, like everything, a work in progress. But there are so many things the world can thank us for: not the least of which is an attempt at equality and fraternity, goals so elusive only a few countries have even tried to follow our example. And so long may it wave and long may students learn  to recognize both it and the great Republic for which it stands, with pride.