Just a few minutes ago, I was walking the dog downtown for our afternooner. I turned the corner at Town Hall, and on one of the benches there, I saw two people. He was of my generation, kind of a Jerry-Garcia-meets-Jimmy-Buffett type, with a wild mop of curly hair, a full beard and sunglasses. He wore Margaritaville-style shorts with palm trees and pink flamingoes, and an Aloha shirt with a lobster pattern in lieu of a tropical one. He was engrossed in a book, an actual book, albeit a paperback, which is something you hardly ever see these days. I turned back to glimpse the title after passing them: it was Tolkien. Next to him sat a woman, possibly his daughter, probably in her 20s. She never looked up from her phone. Spoke volumes. Not about them as individuals, but about their respective generations. When I was growing up, there was talk of the “Generation Gap”, the huge chasm in thinking between post-Kennedy, post-Woodstock youngsters and their black-and-white, crew cut parents, who couldnt seem to comprehend the fact that the new generation had begun to suspect that there might be more important things in life than the so-called “American Dream” and having a doctor and/or a lawyer in the family. Nowadays, it seems, the Generation Gap is more about Analog vs. Digital, first editions vs. Kindle 2.0, letters vs. tweets. I’m such an old fart. I must go read a book now.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 22:02:27 +0000
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