The Last Posting

For 25 postings now I’ve mused about what the high school years (1954-58) meant to me. It’s been a wonderful ego trip, and I’ll let you know when I sell the movie rights. I’m holding out for either Helen Bonham-Carter or Sandra Bullock to play me.

My daughter Brenda introduced me to blogging several years ago. As a yoga instructor, she started the blog Grounding Thru the Sit Bones in response to her students’ request for instructions they could practice at home. You’ve seen Brenda’s comments at the end of some of my postings. I think she feels bad that others have rarely commented—not the response common to bloggers of a younger generation who expect to be encouraged, flamed, or otherwise reacted to.

I keep telling Bren that she shouldn’t expect we members of the Silent Generation (as those who were born in the years 1925-45 just before the Baby Boomers have been labeled) to stick our necks out or demonstrate much attention-seeking. We were raised to listen to parents and authority figures, follow leaders (such as the avuncular war-hero president Ike), and get with the program. Various books have been written about us: William Whyte’s Organization Man (1955), Sloan Wilson’s novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (made into a movie starring Gregory Peck in 1956), and David Riesman’s sociological classic The Lonely Crowd (1950), which coined the term “other-directed” to describe slavish attention to peer pressure. Riesman's book argues that although other-directed individuals are crucial for the smooth functioning of the modern organization, individuality is compromised.

Amidst the apathy and earnestness we’ve been accused of, some have been mavericks who stood out more easily in the 1950s than later in the 1960s when rebellion was rampant. The Rebel without a Cause was portrayed by James Dean and Elvis Presley, by the Beat Generation of writers and poets (e.g., Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg) and artistically by William de Kooning in painting, John Cage in music, and Merce Cunningham in dance.

Because we reached adulthood at the beginning of the 1960s, we occupied a transitional position. We were not 30 yet (and could therefore still be trusted), and we could become rebels with causes. We could have marched from Selma to Montgomery, joined the hippies in Haight-Asbury, burned our bras, or shouted, “Hey, hey LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?”—as our peers, now married and employed in the business or military of the country, watched in horror during the TV news.

No, I wasn’t expecting many comments at the end of my postings from my contemporaries. But I was very happy when people emailed me anecdotes about themselves that my recollections had stirred up. When someone wrote: “This is a personal message....copyrighted and protected...not for republication!!! Simply some musings to my friend.....” then I knew I had better watch my step!

My Love Affair with the Computer

When Bill Young began planning for a reunion, I offered to help with the computer side of it. I wasn’t sure how many classmates were as enthused as I about email, websites, digital images, and such. According to a recent survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, only 35% of Americans age 65 or older use the Internet. As it turned out, a much higher percent of the NAHS Class of 1958 have email accounts: 88 people (60% of the class now numbering 147). More than half of them registered at our Class Report website. I’m sorry that 59 class members were excluded from the fun, but I hope they will soon see the advantages of becoming computer literate, too.

I’ve spent most of my working life at universities where computers started popping up on our desks in the mid-1980s. We were receiving and sending email messages by the 1990s. Now that home PCs and laptops are available everywhere, they have proved to be a wonderful resource for all of us. We don’t need to spend money on postage or film or airfares. We might get to see a picture of our newest grandchild the same hour he’s born. In fact, thanks to Skype, we can talk to children and grandchildren while seeing them on the screen (and unfortunately, they can see us, too, if we turn on our webcams).

I was reminded of the interconnectedness of today’s world when news of the Iowa floods was carried on the media everywhere. I received thoughtful messages of concern not only from other states, but from old friends in Canada and Latvia and former students in South Korea and New Zealand.

Generous members of our class have contributed to the maintenance of our Class Report website (http://www.NAHS1958.com) until November 2010!—and we can easily extend it leading up to our next reunion. Please keep visiting it. I can promise a slide show of informal photos after the reunion—I’ve already packed my Nikon, and I hope other people will be snapping away, too. Keep in touch with your friends in the class by email. Add to “Class News” when you’ve got something to report. Leave “Messages.” Update your biographical profile if you change your email address. Post photos on Face Book and put in a link for us.

Now I’d better pack my bag and be going. Thanks to all of you who have written, encouraged me, contributed remembrances about teachers, humored me by filling out my job questionnaire, and just visited “My Senior Moments” sometimes. No one enjoyed the trip back to 1958 more than I did. To all of you, as Bob Hope would sing, Thanks for the Memories.