[manaboutown]

Graduating HS in 1960 I grew up an 'Ike" as I was born toward the end of the Silent Generation. My parents who were born in 1898 and 1905 had been through a lot: WWI, the Spanish Flu (my father had it and survived), my mother had Scarlet Fever as a child, the Great Depression, WWII, the Korean Conflict, Viet Nam, and all the social upheaval of the late 1960s. My father was a grocer and during the depression noticed some of his customers who did not have pets were buying dog food which they probably ate to survive. I grew up in a house where we recycled everything we could, drove a single car until the wheels were ready to fall off and so on. There is no doubt Boomers who came a few years later had it better. Wartime gas and food rationing were over, people were buying homes and moving into new suburban housing developments and eating better. Huge numbers of veterans went to college on the GI bill. Over time technology improved everyone's life and has continued to do so and I believe shall in the future.

The younger generations can thank previous generations, including Boomers, for a far better standard of living than we could possible envision even a very few generations back. No one need starve, even people on welfare have cell phones and some pretty nice vehicles from what I have seen in welfare office parking lots. New technology will solve problems as it has in the past. Comparing the emissions of today's vehicles to those of the 50s and 60s will amaze anyone. Agricultural production per acre has increased astonishingly. I could go on but hope I have made my point.