STUCK IN THE MUD - REALLY?

  Jan 10, 2024

We entered this world after WW-2. and grew up in the decades that followed. They call us The Baby Boomer Generation.

When our parents came home from the war mom and dad did more than kiss. It’s still embarrassing to think about our parents “Doing the Deed”. The Boom was when we Popped out.

A lot of things happened through our lives. The Lunar Landing, The Beatles Landed and Elvis Wiggled Our parents cussed when they heard our music. We rebelled as they said  … “thats not music”.

We thought the Viet Nam War was a Stir Fry. When our fiends died there we grew up fast. The Korean War was a long way from home. The Bay of Pigs obviously didn’t smell right. Desert Storm was a sweet after dinner treat. We were wow’d when Storm’n Norman taught us Shock and Awe and our Football Team used it as a moto. Maybe you should Google it to learn more. Goggle not Google required focus. I think you are supposed to wear Goggles so you cant Ogle. Who knows?

We went to School and it was safe. The food was good. We feared getting hit by a Spit-Ball. We knew nothing about an AK47. We thought is was a Dog Food.

A date was not like a dried prune. In fact, we had a lot of fun in our teen years. Today we date on-line and Match.com is the way to go.

A formal Marriage was still in vogue but making babies was not talked about. It was an interesting time for sure. As we speak these norms have changed. Not necessarily the basic baby principles. The difference is the how and where. Was the babyformed in a petri dish.  Who decides it’s sex. Who carried the Baby. Was the parent a male or a female . What’s an ultra sound. Change for us has not been coins in our pocket. Change came with pain and challenges. We understand life’s joys and sorrows. We learned fast that $240k was cost to raise your child. Several kisses became expensive. Most of us are glad we went there. We all have our stories. We’ve all gone through our stuff. Our parents did not parent as they should have. Some more than others.  Everyone of us has  a parenting deficit. It’s from our emptiness we made a life. Learning reveals a constant state of reaching forward.

Life is hard. We are familiar with it. Things are not always fair. We had to change. We adjusted the best we knew how. We changed, our children changed, the world changed.

We watched TV Shows like Tennessee Ernie Ford, I love Lucy, I Dream of Genie, Red Skeleton, Bing Crosby. Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Mr Rogers, Sky King, Captain Kangaroo, Pat Boon, Dom Delouise, Don Rickles, Milton Beryl, Bob Hope, Lawrence Welk, Ed Sullivan, Bob Barker, Perry Coumo, Andy Williams, Johnny Carson. These are just a few of the important influencers of our times.

We Micky Mouse’d things together. Do you remember ….? We do ..!!

When we took down the posters of Bat Man and Robin it was life transforming.

Whenever a new normal settled in, something always changed. The empty nest was a common name for the echoes in our homes. Our our parents became our children. We learned to be familiar with a list of new Medical Terms. Words we used with our own Elder Care. Thank God for Handicapped Parking. Who would have thought.

Death is now called end of life. Burial has become Cremation. Sprinkling is not watering the lawn.

Honestly, we have lived  through way too much. It’s gone faster and faster. We’ve lived through Eight Decades and been part of Two Different Centuries. Thats a view of  two different millennia. Without question we’ve stretched our brains ….

Some of you may remember  January 1st, 2000 as Y2K. Read the history and see. We were told the year 2,000 was the year of the end. It was rumored that Star Wars was a dispute on Hollywood Blvd.  Only R2D2 knew what we were talking about. Can you imagine all of this…?

Now lets talk technology. Phones were on party lines.  Long distance calls went thru an operator.  We made person to person calls. Ok please explain …. what other reason would you make a call?

We paid for our calls by the minute. A Collect Call was when we got someone else to pay. We were the first generation to make Phone Calls anywhere in the world. Eventually these calls had no extra charge. Why did they ever charge us in the first place.

We used phone booths. Its not to be confused with a restaurant booth. Both booths were where we “made out” with our date.  The phone booth was where we got out of the rain.

A phone booth was always equipped with a phone book. Do you know what a phone book is. Is it a book about phones?  We remember sitting on a phone book in order to eat at the table.

A phone booth was where we went to call mom. We carried an emergency dime in our loafers so we could make a call. Clark Kent showed us how changed our clothes in one. He was a Super Guy. He helped our generation see that we could fly high. Thats different from driving on drugs. you have to be really old to get what’s being said. You had to be there to understand all of this. We’ll talk about that later.

At first there were rotary phones, then push button phones and cordless phones. After that we used radio phones, car phones, bag phones, brick phones, mobile phones, flip phones, blackberry phones satellite phones and smart phones. We even had the first Ear Phones…? Thats why we never used our phonograph.

Video calls were a dream come true. We thot FaceTime was a Long  Kiss.  A Zoom Call was rolling your phone on a Cube of Butter. We believed that YouTube is our friends tooth paste and TikTok is the noise the clock makes.

Ok what is data useage. We thought Roaming was when the Cow jumped the fence. Global Communication was when we could reach out and touch someone. At least thats what they told us. We were in communication with almost anyone we wanted too. When the world was shrinking so were some of our body parts.

We have used The Dito Machine, The Mimeograph, The IBM Selectric, (Thats not to be confused with irritable bowel movements). We used The Zerox, The Photo-Stat Machine, The Overhead Projector, Picture Slides, Copy Machines and Video Projector’s. Now we have 3-D Printers.

Vinyl records and reel to reel tapes were our source for recorded music. Today we do our listening via online streaming. There were a lot of things In between. Have you heard about 8-Track’s or Cassette’s. Who knows what Pandora is. Is it a box of tunes?  Does it have to do with iTunes? So what is iTunes? We’re still figuring that out.

We have communicated with handwritten letters, phones, faxes, email and texts.

C.O.D. Was not a bottom feeding fish. Whats App seemed really helpful but what the heck is it..?

Some of us are still learning about Mileage Plans and Advantage Plans. What do these have to do with MPG (Miles Per  Gallon). Why would we plan to take advantage of others ?

We listened to sports on the radio, Then we watched them on Black  & White TV’s. We were sure that Color TV had to be fake.

Today HDTV, HTMI 3D are household terms. Cat-5 is when I have more than four cats.

The world became technical right in front of us. Confused developers made up some crazy names. They had to be out of their minds.

A Smart TV with a Flat Screen seemed wrong. We thought it was  an intelligent female with under developed body parts.

The stores sold us VHS’s, DVD’s and CD’s. Now we watch Apple TV and Hulu. What is NetFlix ?  I know what booger flicks are. Is Amazon TV a walk in the Jungle? Just use your Fire Stick with some imagination. and might figure it out.

The  first computers came with six inch wide Silver Data Tape and Punch  Cards. We went to the Doctor for help with our floppy disks. We thought hard discs needed spinal surgery. A hard drive was long road trip. No it’s not what you’re thinking.  A Zip File had to be what you might think. However what if your Zipper broke or was left down.  ED was a TV Show with a talking horse. (There was a Show called Mr. Ed)

We had to figure out what’s a Justin Beaber? How do I Spear Brittany. I guess you must do it Swiftly..!!

So, when they mentioned UTI’s. Was this some kind of UFO. We’ve had bad dreams about getting bitten by a giga. Is a megabytes a large size giga? Lets not even ask about terabytes? Maybe these are a new strain of Rabies.

We’ve worn Shorts, Long Trousers, Flares or Bell Bottoms . We walked in Saddle Shoes, Oxfords, Wing Tips, Converse Tennis Shoes and Loafers. Kind of gives new meaning to loafing around. Have you ever understood why Tennis Shoes were used for playing Basketball?

What was a Pant Suit ? Seems like it should have a Top Suit too. Levi’s were fancy Blue Jeans. Dockers were for boating. Tie Died was a dead cloth around our neck under a poorly bleached and hand washed and wrinkled T-Shirt. When we talked about our Dickie it was too embarrassing.

Some of us had infantile paralysis, meningitis, polio, tuberculosis, swine flu.  If you’ve had the mumps

you will remember. The measles was not our grandfather’s spending practice. If we

re-shingled our roof it doesn’t mean we have had the shingles already. Anyway, now we’ve lived through the COVID shut down. We learned about  Covid-19. It’s really complicated. Maybe you got your Vax when you were 19yrs old.

Its absolutely mind numbing what we have we come through …

As children we played on roller skates and tricycles, Then we grew  into bicycles, mopeds. Now we drive with propane, gas or diesel. An EV is not a sexually transmitted disease. We are becoming familiar with Hybrids and EV’s. When they said SUV we thought it had to do with a SLOW version UV #10 Sunscreen . When we heard about a pickup we thought it was a cheap date. A nice car was very Cool. All of us know that Cool is a brand of Cigarettes. Isn’t that right Dude ?

We are the ones who had an analog childhood, a digital adulthood. Now in our Senior years we’re learning AI.  We've “SIA” (seen it all). Our generation has witnessed more change than most others. We’ve had to change in every dimension of life. We’ve had to grow in faith at every turn. It’s our generation that has adapted.

In many cases we had to do it quickly. Change moved at a breakneck speed.

A wise man said that “Life is all about loss”. Those who do well with loss will do well in life. Remember, they took away your Binky and Diapers …. some day they will come for your Car Keys. Thats some truth about living.

Change requires trust and faith. Think about words like …. He is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end.

We know him as Christ the redeemer. The one who takes the bad things of our lives and makes them into good. He is the author and finisher of our faith. The beginning and the end.

He taught us that “All things work together for good, even to those who look for his return”  ….

It’s all good ….because we see it that way. We are the generation that knows how to accept change and adapt to it …. Bring it on ..!

There’s no way we can be Stuck in the /Mud. Our life’s have demanded flexibility in order to survive.

Personal note:

Many times people don’t want us to change. They are disappointed when we dare to step out. I hope that as you read this, you will learn.

There are very few opportunities in life to leap forward. It’s not often that we can live totally free to embrace a new reality. A new place of spiritual growth. Its a place where one can truly be born again and again and again. Everything I’ve done so far was a death to my old self and now Im continuing to walk in death all the more. Unfortunately I’ve  had to do it without my old relationships old friends and that is painful.

I’m Working out my own Salvation (healing) with Fear and Trembling.

I know that’s what the Word of God teaches. Now I get to press on toward the high calling in Christ Jesus…

Not many dare to press on past those around them. I think it’s obedience. Some call it irresponsible - I call it faith.

Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

Obedience is to follow the will of God…

Tom Isenhart

Jan 10, 2024

On my 70th Birthday