An ode to Baby Boomers

Benny’s Beat

By Benny Cartwright

I am a proud member of Generation X. I was born in 1980, so I’m the youngest of the young from that generation, which spans from 1965-1980, but I’m glad to be a part of it. Mainly because I mostly get to stay out of the generation wars – there is so much fighting among the boomers, Millennials, and now Generation Z.

In fact, the most ridiculous thing that I have recently seen is a new trend where Millennials (1981-1996) and Gen Z (1997-2003) are fighting over who looks older. Millennials are saying they’ve aged like fine wine, while Gen Z is saying they’ve lived through such a lot in their short lives, it’s aged them. And there are fights about it.

And of course there was the infamous “ok, boomer” retort that was popular on social media for quite some time, as basically a way to invalidate anything a member of the Baby Boomer generation (1946-1964) had to say in response to whatever hot topic was being debated. And then Boomers who would constantly blame Millennials for wasting money on avocado toast.

These debates, while mostly held in online forums like X and TikTok, do not serve us well. They are just another way to divide us among our various differences and life experiences. And I’m not having it.

In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I was out with this paper’s Editor-in-Chief, Morgan M. Hurley. While at the bar, Morgan introduced me to a co-worker of hers, who turned out to be an absolutely lovely woman. As we were sharing about ourselves, we came to the realization that she is on the oldest end of Gen X (born in 1965), and me of course, being on the youngest end.

While the 15 years of life experience she has on me took her through some very different periods in our fast-changing history, we had some nice conversations about many of the things we share being a part of the same generation, although on opposite ends of it. And the thing we agreed most on was that we do not like the generational wars, and were pleased that we “X’ers” have mostly been left out of it (noting that she often gets lumped in with Boomers, and I often get lumped in with Millennials because of our proximity to those generational spaces).

With that said, it really got me thinking about one generation in particular: the Baby Boomers; the generation that has been most recently maligned by many younger than them for “ruining the world,” “hoarding wealth for themselves,” or “having their cake, eating it, and not sharing it with others.”

Sure, many members of that generation have done some pretty awful things, particularly when it comes to the economy and how it seems to only benefit corporations and the richest of the rich, while the rest of us struggle to get by every single day. But what I want to focus on is honoring the many good people of this generation, and their contributions, including those in our LGBTQ community.

I was raised by Baby Boomers. Most of my teachers throughout my schooling were Boomers. And when I became active in the LGBTQ community, it was Boomers who took me under their wing and taught me about the struggles they had been through to get us to the successes our community had seen by the late 1990s, while also helping prepare us to take on the challenges ahead of us.

They were also the generation most affected by the AIDS crisis, and to personally be able to meet many who survived it, and learn from them, has been powerful.

To me, I still think of so many Baby Boomers as the vibrant 40-ish year old “old people” whom I looked up to when I was in my teens. Yet when I see a group of senior citizens in their late 60s and 70s now, I realize those are the people who raised me. As I get older, they get older. And what struck me most recently was learning about the death of a neighbor lady I grew up with in the Allied Gardens suburb of San Diego.

My mom (now 70!) was a single parent and we were lucky to live in a neighborhood that was very close-knit and all the families looked out for each other. Come to think of it, a lot of my neighbors were just nosy, but that probably kept my brothers and I out of trouble – or at least more trouble than we were already causing.

Anyway, this neighbor lady, Jane, and I developed a bond when I was around 12 years old. I had been friends with her daughter, but as she became more interested in non-gay boys and other teenage girl stuff, her mom and I started chatting more.

In fact, I started to look forward to my daily chats with Jane after school, and all of the neighborhood gossip from the day that she’d tell me. She had a thick, New York Jewish accent, and chain smoked, so that made it all the more entertaining for me. Sometimes she even sent me to the store, with a permission note in hand, to pick up cigarettes for her (yes, that was really a thing back then!). Jane also found my dad to be quite handsome, so whenever he’d pull up to our driveway in his Jeep for a visit, she’d race to her kitchen window (which had a view of our front yard) to swoon over my dad. I thought it was adorable.

Jane and I hung out and were buddies for years. I stopped hanging out with her as much when I came out as gay at 16, but I always knew she knew, with the winks she’d give me – winks of approval.

I, of course, “grew up,” and started college and got busy with all the things I was involved with, finding boyfriends of my own, and really shifting my entire life to Hillcrest. I lived at home with my mom until I was 26, because it was conveniently close to SDSU where I went to school and worked, so I would still see Jane for several years after we drifted apart. I’d always wave as I was rushing in and out in my car and told myself all the time that I needed to reconnect with her.

At some point, Jane and her family had a falling out of sorts and she divorced her husband and moved a few neighborhoods over. For years, my mom would tell me that I should give Jane a call and say hi. My mom would run into her at the grocery store or various other places and Jane would always ask about me. My mom even sent me Jane’s phone number and I told myself for nearly 20 years that I would call Jane and see how she was doing.

Well, I just learned that in January of this year, Jane died. How I would have loved to be able to enjoy just one more chat with her and reminisce about the old days and all the funny characters in the neighborhood she used to tell me all the juicy gossip about. But I’ll never get that chance.

The Baby Boomer generation, which is full of amazing people who went through a lot, is getting up there in age. And as has been the case for all of human history, as people get older, they pass away. I want to make sure we honor them, learn from them, and show our appreciation to them while we can. No one lasts forever.

To the Boomers who might be reading this and saying, “Wait a minute, you’re putting me out to pasture, already?” Trust me, I am not. I understand completely that many of our Baby Boomer generation are still incredibly active, working, contributing members of society. In fact, my 96-year-old grandmother (who is on the youngest end of “The Greatest Generation,” which birthed the Boomers) is still running around like the Energizer Bunny and I’m so thankful to still have her around, and hopefully for several more years.

Finally, I chose to write about this because I wanted to acknowledge the group of people who were and continue to be a source of inspiration and education for me, and as that group gets older, I want to do better about showing my love and appreciation. I don’t want another person I was once close with, like Jane, to pass away before I get the chance to let them know what the time we spent together meant to me.

–Benny Cartwright is a longtime activist and community leader. Reach him at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram @BennyC80.

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