Last time we asked readers to consider the pivotal, most formative moments in their lives. The comments were a rollercoaster, from the fun…
I came of age in San Francisco in the Sixties. In terms of shaping my personal development, it doesn’t get any more epochal than that!
-Doug P.
To the personally devastating…
Hurricane Katrina. My home, job and lifestyle gone in a flash.
-Diane
Hope you are doing better now, Diane.
Civil Rights
Civil rights was top of mind as a pivotal event, for the nation and for some readers.
… it was the Civil Rights movement and the naked brutality of the police and the hatred directed at “negroes” that transformed (me) into becoming a Liberal.
Art C.
…One of the pivotal moments for me was in the 1960s when students at Stanford University, where I was a student myself, went to the South to register black voters…
Judy K.
The Holocaust
For others, the pivotal event was the Holocaust, in a very personal – and powerful – way. .
For me it was World War II and The Holocaust. My Jewish parents escaped from Austria (barely) in time, but most of their friends and relatives did not…
Ron K.
Reader Susan I. responded to Ron’s comment with another story of an escape from the Nazis.
For one reader, the pivotal event was the space race, a thread that runs through his entire lifespan…and to his grandchildren!
Space race. Influenced my hobbies and room decor (along with baseball) as a teen, choice of college major (engineering), and career paths (US Air Force and private industry / aerospace)….
Eric W.
Thank you for your service, Eric.
There are others pivotal events in the comments — and we’re still waiting for yours! We’ll keep the comments open for a while so please feel free to add your own.
In case you missed it, the original Open Thread is below.
Last year we ran an Open Thread called “Don’t Call me ‘Senior Citizen.'” It listed the various names for people over 60….senior citizen, oldster, elder and others.
One commenter noted that other age cohorts are finely categorized into time periods of about 20 years each. “Millennial” “Gen X” or “Gen Z’ – but once a person hits 60, they’re pretty much stuck in the ‘senior” category from 60 on.
Of course, one could make the point that ‘boomer” is a category, although it seems to have a pejorative tang to it. Some have called it ‘the end of friendly intergenerational conversation.”
I prefer to consider that age cohorts are shaped by epochal events. Apparently Billy Joel thought so too.
These events are often but not exclusively experienced during the early years. For me, as it was for many, it was Kennedy’s assassination and the other assassinations that followed, like Martin Luther King, Jr., plus the moon landing, Vietnam (sweating out the draft lottery and praying my brothers and cousins didn’t ‘win”), the aftermath of Stonewall, disco, and AIDS, to name a few. The crime wave in NYC in the 70’s and 80’s gave me personal security habits I still use today. Of course, 9/11.
Privacy was a given, there was no internet, and we hid in basements and under our desks in case of nuclear attack.
But that’s me. How about you? What were the epochal events in the country and the world that shaped you? Let us know in the comments!
Virge Randall is Senior Planet’s Managing Editor. She is also a freelance culture reporter who seeks out hidden gems and unsung (or undersung) treasures for Straus Newspapers; her blog “Don’t Get Me Started” puts a quirky new spin on Old School New York City. Send Open Thread suggestions to editor@seniorplanet.org.
COMMENTS
11 responses to “Open Thread Update: Pivotal Events”
Some of the most epochal events of my lifetime were assassinations: of JFK when I was in grade school, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy when I was in junior high, Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone in San Francisco when I was in college in Berkeley. Also when I was in college, the bodies of the people who so tragically died at Jonestown were coming home, mostly to Oakland (just next door, so to speak). I wanted so badly to become a peacemaker…but peace seems ever farther away
The War in Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement in the sixties has shaped my entire life: my thinking, feelings, political views and actions. They essentially shaped who I am.
Hurricane Katrina. My home, job and lifestyle gone in a flash.
Even before I was old enough to know what politics was, I had been introduced to its conflicts. My father was Republican, worked in the defense industry and voted for Nixon in 1960. My mother, on the otherhand, was a Democrat, an artist and voted for Kennedy. I can still hear them arguing, often quite loudly and often at the dinner table.
But it was the Civil Rights movement and the naked brutality of the police and the hatered directed at “negroes” that transformed into becoming a Liberal.
One of the pivotal moments for me was in the 1960s when students at Stanford University, where I was a student myself, went to the South to register black voters. I didn’t go, but I was quite moved. Ever afterwards I involved myself in improving race relations and helping people of color and immigrants be treated as full-fledged human beings and citizens of the US.
What is the name for those of us who were born before the “boomers” & after the “greatest generation”?
JFK, moon landing, Woodstock, Vietnam. And I don’t even live in the US! Just shows how much you guys dominate the world.
For me it was World War II and The Holocaust. My Jewish parents escaped from Austria (barely) in time, but most of their friends and relatives did not. I remember their worries during the war, their search for who remained alive for a year or two after the war ended, and years of looking at pictures of the (many) people who didn’t make it.
Dear Ron,
My parents were also from Vienna and luckily were able to leave due to the good graces of Dean William Ralph Inge, the then dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in England. My father, an English teacher wrote to him. Dean Inge made arrangements for my parents and brother to leave. They landed safely in England and just like your parents had great losses of relatives. I was born several years later in the U.S.
Space race. Influenced my hobbies and room decor (along with baseball) as a teen, choice of college major (engineering), and career paths (US Air Force and private industry / aerospace). Now apparently even as a grandfather — my grandson showed me his “stomp rocket” recently and I got to thinking about how to measure altitude like I used to with my model rockets over 50 years ago. I hate to think our best days are behind us, but, the moon landings and Apollo 13 were among our very best.
I came of age in San Francisco in the Sixties. In terms of shaping my personal development, it doesn’t get any more epochal than that!
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