I'm thinking of the 'me' generation thing this evening with my uncle's passing...
I was of that generation. I don't deny them. The reasons are mixed but the result what it was.
But I did feel so apart from that. I went to HS in one of the 10 richest towns in America. Now, my parents were not all that rich. well off enough. but they bought one of the cheapest houses in town. those chose the town for the music program at the HS cause my sis was all musical. and they knew it'd be temperal, as it always is with oil people, so in a couple years they could sell allright. (in retrospect, they should have rented it and sold it for a couple million)
anyways...
but so here we are in this town, having come from bakersfield where we wore our torn patched jeans and the school was full of all classes and colors... to... that town.
and then we visit alabama in the summer, and our grandfather is working the fields with a mule, in his 80's, and granny is thrilled she has washer. an actual washer, as when we were younger, she did the wash in a ringer washer on the back porch.
and then I visit in '81... Papa passed away a couple of years before and the ditches are growing up... you got ditches running through the fields here. and Granny puts a swing blade in my hand... in August in Alabama... and sends me out to clear the ditches...
any 'me' generation notion I might ever have had, got burnt up in that August Alabama sun swinging that swing blade. :)
I reckon I am grateful?
so what are the stories the next generation will tell? what can this generation give to them? I do wonder of this. Maybe I am wrong to think if you haven't sweat in a southern sun you don't 'get it'? but it can't hurt, aye??? |
