I’m a 60’s child. I was born in the Sixties, grew up in the Sixties, I remember the first moon landing. The music of that era still resonates in my bones. You’d be hard pressed to find a non-Beatles song that best sums it up like Scott Mackenzie’s When You Go To San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair). Written, by the way, by the late great John Phillips of Mamas & the Papas fame.

Anyway, I was musing the other day about the people of my generation. What the hell happened to us? As we are now rapidly approaching the deep end of ‘middle age’, it seems we have somehow lost our way. Or perhaps never really got started. It seems that so many people I went to school with never really ‘became’ anything. We just grew up and started getting old. What about our dreams? We were going to do so much, and now we’re stuck with a moron in the White House, the world is labouring under the illusion of the ‘war on terror’, and most of us are content to watch American Idol. Huh?

Not everyone fell through the cracks – I have a very good friend who became an accountant. While not the most glamorous job title, he works for a very large and well-known company. They pay him pretty @#$% well, and he’s constantly traveling around to look at client’s books. Said clients will wine and dine him, and he makes a pretty comfortable living. But he’s an exception. Too many others just twiddle away their time. Me too, I guess. Another fellow I know has lived on both coasts pursuing an acting career. Except for a few shots as “guy leaning on bar in background” on some tv shows, he seems to spend most of his time partying (and lying about his age). A girl I used to date is living alone now that her daughter is in college. She looks like a Grandmother. I saw a recent picture and didn’t recognize her. Another is singing with a tired looking band in a bar in Georgia.

Maybe this happens to every generation – they come out ready to rock the world, and in the end just whimper away to eke out an existence until death mercifully claims them. Maybe I’m indignant because it’s finally happening to us. Maybe I’m frustrated because I recall all those idyllic summer days and know we’re getting a bit short on those. Maybe I should have been an accountant.