Posted on 06/07/2004 1:31:59 PM PDT by Cinnamon Girl
We’re Not Gen-X, We’re Gen-Reagan
This is for everyone who was raised to believe that our young lives would soon end in a nuclear war, of mutually assured destruction, quivering under our school desks with President Reagan to thank for making the pink and gray tile on our classroom floors the last thing we would ever see.
This is for those of us raised in the post-graduate, post-doctorate suburbs where Volkswagens and Volvos taught us that we “can’t hug our children with nuclear arms” and that “war is not healthy for children and other living things.”
This is for the generation that grew up watching “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “Laverne & Shirley,” “Cosby Show” and hundreds of bad impressions of President Reagan as a shellac haired cowboy buffoon who didn’t have a thought in his head, followed by impressions of Dan Quayle as a simple minded bad speller who attacked the beloved “Murphy Brown” for having a baby and no husband, followed (in our adulthood) by monkey-like caricatures of the ignorant and stupid cowboy-war-monger President Bush.
We know who we are. We accept the moniker “Generation X” and we don’t even know what the heck that means. It might have something to do with being jaded and feeling crappy about dolphins in canned tuna, and about the tragic death of Kurt Cobane. It probably refers to a specific group of people who saw every John Hughes “teen” movie and point to “The Breakfast Club” as a virtual documentary. It has never signified the Generation that grew up feeling good about America because of President Ronald Reagan.
Our generation went from an early childhood of Jimmy Carter, a droopy peanut farmer with big teeth and a hostage crisis, to a happy, energetic, powerful and confident Republican president who suddenly made politics interesting.
I remember watching a Carter/Reagan debate by myself one night when my mom was out. There was no doubt in my mind that Ronald Reagan would be president. He was irresistible, and he made America sound like an exciting, attractive place.
I remember collapsing on the couch in the family room, feeling as if I’d been punched in the stomach, the day President Reagan was shot. It was in middle school. There was no discussion of the event by teachers or even the principal. My happiness that he would survive was a quiet and personal event.
While family friends and neighbors continued to wring their hands, and angrily mock what they called “Reagan’s Star Wars fantasy,” I remember him saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” He just seemed really gutsy. And my neighbors, who said “Visualize World Peace,” and meant it, seemed passé. Action, not words. That was hot.
In high school, I remember a school assembly before Reagan’s re-election. Nobody in our debate team wanted to be on the pro-Mondale side. Reagan’s second big win was a done deal and everyone knew it. Even before we could convincingly articulate our reasons for supporting President Reagan, and long before we could vote for him, we knew he was great, and that he was helping us.
In college, I waited in a long line of other students at USC to vote for President Reagan’s then Vice President, G.H.W. Bush. When I finally got to a voting booth, inside the small house of a Mexican-American family, I noticed on their mantle, a big framed photograph of President Reagan. That’s right. That is right.
When his second term was over, President Reagan came to speak at USC. Somehow, I managed to get a seat in the fully packed auditorium to see President Reagan in person. The standing ovation, when he took the stage, was 11 minutes long. And he was dazzling, of course. We were all riding the high for a long while afterward.
The first time I went to the Reagan Library, I was most impressed by the big chunk of graffitied Berlin Wall sitting outside, above the valley. I knew what that was about. That was a part of my growing up memories.
Tonight, I plan to go again to the Reagan Library, to pay my respects to the man who had a greater influence on my generation than any other person the media or the pundits bring to mind.
Thank you, President Reagan. G-d Bless you. And G-d Bless America.
And what 'greatest generation' raised the children that became the boomers? hmmmm....
Gen-Reagan.... excellent. How cool it would be if that actually replaced the insipid "Gen-X" label.
I've often thought how lucky I am to have "come of age" during Reagan's presidency. I was 13 in 1980 and just beginning to have an understanding about politics, the world, etc. When I think of the kids who turned 13 in 1992, and think of them looking back at the butthead prez who formed their earliest political ideals and consciousness, I wince. How sad, that they will never really have a connection to the presidency -- to the country -- the way we did through Ronald Reagan. The sad thing is, it took us little more than a decade to go from such greatness in office to such trash. How did that happen?
I am still proud and grateful that I was *finally* old enough to vote in 1984 -- and to have been able to cast that very first ballot for Reagan's re-election.
The short answer: The end of the Cold War -- brought about, in large part, by President Reagan -- made everyone feel safe and that foreign affairs and defense were passé and that domestic issues (education, prescription drugs for old people, welfare, etc.) were more important.
I remember talking with a knee-jerk leftist co-worker back in July or August 2001. He loudly proclaimed that since the Cold War was over, we should cut the military and military budget down to almost nothing and spend it all on free health coverage and other socialist, income redistribution projects -- and called me a right-wing nut for believing that just because one known threat was gone, there were likely many more out there. Of course, he spent the month or so after 9/11 avoiding me.
Guess where I grew up. ;)
Click on the image.
And no, I don't own it. I just bought something from them, once.
"The American Dream isn't one of making government bigger, it's keeping faith with the mighty spirit of free people under God." - Ronald Reagan
You & I are of the same generation. Voted for President Reagan in 1980, my first presidential election. Was still in college & the year before getting married. I was also 21.
Great I have a nickname--Gen-Reagan! About time we find a nitch!
Exactly. I'm not a boomer, I'm not a gen-Xer, but the gen-Reagan fits us to a tee.
Oh THANK YOU!
I can finally distance myself from my evil SIL!
( and YES " Jones" fits....;)
That's an interesting graph.
I plan on using this label from now on, maybe it'll catch!! Has so much more meaning and substance than "X" - and we did grow up with meaning and substance in a great president.
Nope - there were at least two more white kids! (me and my bro)
You sure didn't hear about school violence as much during that time period. Not like the 90's when clinton was President. I think President Reagan's optimism transcended to all specters of society. Oh yeah, and the gen-xers dressed better too. :)
I remember coming in from the playground one day to find that the hostages were free, but I didn't equate this with Reagan. It took an 8th social studies class, with an interesting teacher to pique my interest. My parents really liked Reagan, and tended toward conservatism, but didn't KNOW that's what they were until he explained it to them, and showed them it's truth.
My girlfriends and I were Reagan fans by the '84 election. One battled terribly with her mother, who insisted upon calling him a warmonger. Kelly retaliated by answering the phone with, "Reagan-Bush '84" every time it rang.
I find myself baffled, sometimes, at how so many people could have lived through this time with me and turned out with different ideas. Reagan explained it, then he proved it. Seems pretty simple to me.
But not so simple, I guess. No politician has been able to quite do it since then.
Complete agreement bump. Good work.
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