Looking in the mirror…

Good morning, Netizens…

Several things leaped out at me from this morning’s David Horsey cartoon about the aging of the Baby Boomers. I was a predecessor of the Baby Boomers, since I had nearly a year of age on top of most Boomers, and a world of experience beneath my belt.

I never wore bell-bottoms or granny glasses. Even back then my ample backside didn’t fit with the latest fashion trends, so I stuck with plain blue jeans suitably adorned with a big belt buckle from one of my favorite truck stops. Even worse, back then I wore thick glasses, coke bottles I believe I called them, just barely legal to get my commercial driver’s license. Later on in life, I had eye surgery which, while it corrected my cataracts, also altered my eyesight to 20-20 without need for those glasses anymore. It changed my life forever.

My hair was a little longer then, but one has only to realize I have a hell of a lot less hair now than then.

Most predominantly, however, I never felt comfortable using such words or phrases of that era such as “far out” or “groovy” simply because they didn’t fit in comfortably with my educational background. Today using either phrase truly dates the speaker, as both have fallen out of contemporary use, thank god.

In short, I never truly fit in with the “in crowd” of the 60’s. I had just enough hair to not appear like a redneck, enough facial hair to allow me to pass for one of the “chosen ones” and during the summer months, I always had a job , and even other times I was always looking for work despite being a full-time student and a long-haul truck driver.

When I look back on the 60’s and 70’s in the mirror, all my mistakes, perceived and otherwise, stand out tall. Of all the musicians and songwriters of that era, hundreds stand out tall in my memory’s horde for I always had the itch to hear new music. However, a song that has stood the test of time, written by the incomparable Tom Paxton, probably states it all when it comes to that era of my life.

“ I could have done it better, I didn’t mean to be unkind, you know that was the last thing on my mind.”

Dave