Appreciation Generation

 

Appreciation Generation

 

On this Thanksgiving Eve, I’ve been a pondering.  Now the fact that I still ponder tells you I am from an older generation.  I don’t think anyone from generations since mine ponder; my generation also tends to wander while we ponder…anyway

While pondering all I have to be thankful for, including the fact that though Mrs. C is still Covid positive, she is feeling much better and is full of piss and vinegar (something that pondering people used to be full of) it occurred to me that I am from the luckiest generation ever.

Why is my generation so lucky?

We have had our difficult times, much as any generation.  A few wars, but none quite as difficult as the World War variety.  We’ve had the Carter economy, but nothing like the depression years.  We had 9-1-1, that was horrible.

We had polio, and now we have a pandemic almost the equal to the Spanish flu of 1919.

Nothing is easy, but we also have things previous generations did not.  TV, computers, I-phones, to name just a few.  Younger generations also have these things and more, so why is my generation the luckiest generation?

Stuff is just stuff.  Unless you have done without, you do not fully appreciate stuff.  My generation remembers when there was no TV, computers or I-phones.  We remember cutting our fingers opening cans, we remember spilling milk trying to gouge those stupid paper tabs out of the bottles.  We remember popping our own corn…OK, that was fun.  Anyway, we remember not having stuff, and the inconvenience of old stuff, and therefore we appreciate what we now have more than subsequent generations that take many things for granted.

We knew friends that suffered from polio and other diseases so we really appreciate vaccines.

Not only do we appreciate things that we once did not have, we had parents who really had it bad during the depression and several World Wars.  Anything which we may have taken for granted growing up, we were constantly reminded that these were things our parents did not have.

I never went without a meal. I also never ate without being told that food abundance was a luxury, and there were people in other countries that were starving.  When the air conditioner kicked in, I was reminded that “back in the day we just slept on the porch and sweated.”  When the heat came on, I was told how much better central heating was than huddling around a radiator.

So, my generation is the appreciation generation.  

No other generation has seen such growth in living standards.  No other generation has experienced the wonders of new technology with the same sense of awe as my generation. Because we can more fully appreciate all the bounty of our times, mine is the luckiest generation.

As you gather with friends and family, you older folks need to express this appreciation to the younger crowd.  Being thankful for what you have requires appreciation that comes from not having.  That includes stuff, it includes friends, it includes family, it includes health, it includes faith.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and as the kids say today, 

“I appreciate y’all.”