What's "bebop?" Let's just say it's very fast as opposed to "cool jazz."
Terry recorded a scat singing showcase that had only one
understandable word. That word was at the end, uttered very abruptly,
bringing laughs of course from the audience. That word was "Watergate."
That notorious word coming from the depths of a boomer's existence
seemed to blend in with a scat-singing song.
Watergate was all about deception, lying, nefariousness, sneaking
around etc. It stood to reason that scat singing with its unintelligible
syllables would be consistent with telling the story.
Eventually of course the whole story came out. Historical annals
tell us the news media were the heroes. This impression was built when
the entertainment industry got ahold of the story. It was a stretch to
make Watergate entertaining but it got done. We got a major motion
picture with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.
The movie had the same name as the book leading up to it: "All the
President's Men." Wink, wink: This was a takeoff on the nursery rhyme
about Humpty Dumpty ("all the king's horses").
Hollywood can exaggerate. But I'm not sure there was much if any
exaggeration in the story as presented in the movie. Watching the movie
"cold," you might think there's no way two mere newspaper reporters
could change history. Surely there are heavy-hitters in the government
who would take over. In a sense they did, I feel, in that they
just got out of the way.
There were powerful people who let Richard Nixon hang himself.
We the voters had elected Nixon. And despite all the eulogizing for
George McGovern when he died, this Democrat was stigmatized as "too
left" when he was in the prime of life. So Nixon got elected, a man who assuredly knew where all the levers of power were in Washington. He was
the vice president for eight years under Dwight Eisenhower.
In 1962, delivering perhaps the most ironic quote in U.S. history,
he told the press "you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore."
Nixon could have lived out the rest of his life most happily and
successfully. But having been in the corridors of power, it was an
elixir he could not resist. He'd not only seek a return, he would use
every conceivable lever known to him, including the non-legitimate ones,
to secure his power.
"Cohort No. 2" and its times
Watergate gives a backdrop for that portion of the population known
as "baby boom cohort No. 2." Boomers are generally thought of as people
born between 1946 and 1964. The so-called "cohort No. 2" was born
between 1956 and 1964. Of course there are no absolute lines of
delineation. I was born in 1955. My Morris High Class of 1973 had its
40-year reunion recently. I attended for about one-half hour of the
festivities.
I think we can conclude this class got imbued with the qualities,
generally speaking, of the baby boom cohort #2. Wikipedia tells us that
Watergate influenced us. Many of my peers might laugh at the suggestion
that Watergate actually influenced them. They'd laugh and say the whole
thing was just ridiculous. It certainly seemed to be ridiculous, but
does this mean we should just write it off as having been frivolous?
These were our nation's leaders at the vortex of something seen as "ridiculous." Should we not expect more?
Boomers had watched as our nation's leaders led us into the Viet
Nam War. We were in the throes of a miserable withdrawal process as we
graduated from high school. We of course tried to put the bad stuff out
of our minds as we gathered for commencement.
You'd never know anything was amiss on that pleasant early-summer
evening in 1973. But in fact we were dragged down, subconsciously
anyway, by a world around us that hardly seemed to inspire optimism. We
should be so lucky as to associate the 1970s only with disco! The Cold
War hovered.
I don't think we suspected "communism" would implode on its own. I
put the word in quotes because even Mikhail Gorbachev seemed perplexed
by it. Perhaps the word was largely an invention by fear-mongers in the
U.S. Gorbachev eventually just shrugged and said he equated the word
with "organized crime." Anytime leadership is not duly elected, I
suppose it's a crime.
Watergate affected our consciousness even though we might laugh at the suggestion. I believe the movie did well.
Oh, the drinking age got lowered for baby boom cohort No. 2, as a
"favor" to us. Well, thanks a lot. Society retreated from that of
course.
We came of age in a time when the stock market had a much different
image from today. It was sort of a remote, exotic and risky place
associated with rich folks. Of course, real rich people don't take many
risks.
One of the biggest puzzles in my life is how Wall Street went from
that exotic place, to a place where all the common folks of the U.S. were
supposed to put their money, in things like 401Ks. Today we wake up in
the morning curious about how the "S&P Futures" are doing. Dear
Lord, what has become of us?
My peers and I came of age with inflation raging. I swore it would
be a constant. A fellow named Paul Volcker eventually came along and
solved that.
We had to withstand a recession. We survived gas shortages. Jimmy Carter never actually used the word "malaise" but we felt it.
Wikipedia tells us that baby boom cohort No. 2 picked up traits of
being "less optimistic (than the norm), feeling distrust of government,
and a general cynicism."
If you're a boomer, you might forget how cynical we were inclined
to be. I mean, when you refer to the president of the U.S. as "Tricky
Dick." Don Meredith referred to him this way on a Monday night football
broadcast. He did have to apologize. But I'm sure he didn't "misspeak."
I remember a joking line among my peers: "Dick Nixon before he dicks you."
Today's young people grow up showered and surrounded with so much
idealism, it's dripping and we seem to just take it for granted. We seem
to feel we can create a utopia for our kids. Now we're attacking
"bullying." My generation understood bullying as a natural extension of
human nature that couldn't be eradicated.
We accepted a lot of very sober realities. Where is the future taking us? Heaven only knows.
I'll predict right here that our U.S. economy is going to implode in
October or November in this year of our Lord 2013. My old associate Jim Morrison says it's likely to happen sooner. "The Fed" won't be
able to save us anymore. Nor will a "bailout." Nor, "all the king's
horses."
Oh, I hope I'm wrong. Baby boom cohort No. 2 knows bad things can
happen. We endured the "Smokey and the Bandit" movies, after all.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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