Young people and I are strangers in the same country.
A report on an incident at the New Hampshire Statehouse last week.
I was standing in a crowded room at the desk of the New Hampshire Secretary of State, waiting for Vivek Ramaswami to show up, sign paperwork, and talk with journalists for an hour or so. I was surrounded by people and TV cameras on tripods. There were several young women crowded up against me in front of the desk where candidates sign. I asked about them. They were reporters, happy to identify themselves. There was no risk they would think I was hitting on them since I am way past that, utterly out of the game, and they know it. I was harmless. They called me “sir.”
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| Before I went upstairs to the Secretary of State's office. |
The were in their mid-late 20s, all in their second or third jobs out of journalism schools, and their careers were doing well. One holding a TV camera on a tripod was a producer for ABC, another with the same gear was there to gather video for Fox News. A third, holding an I-phone, on which she could type rapidly with two thumbs, was from USA Today. A fourth held an I-phone to use as a microphone. She was from NH Public Broadcasting. They looked out through the crowded office into the hallway and were remarking among themselves that there were a hundred Ramaswamy supporters standing in the crowded hallway waiting for him to show up.
“Isn’t that crazy of them, out there in that stuffy hallway,” one said.
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| Early, waiting for Ramaswamy |
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| Ramaswamy arrived |
“Yeah, not smart like us,” I said. Of course, we were doing essentially what they were doing, standing in a stuffy office, waiting for Ramaswamy. I was making an allusion to the dialog in The Magnificent Seven where Yul Brenner said those famous words of self deprecation to Steve McQueen they observed a hanger-on to their group, riding behind them in heat and dust.
They stared at me blankly.
“You know, that line in The Magnificent Seven? Yul Brenner said it to Steve McQueen as they looked at that guy following them. In the movie."
More blank stares.
“You've heard of The Magnificent Seven?” “No”s from each of them.
“Da-DA, da-da-da, da-da-da-DA-da-da,” I sang, doing the movie musical score that Philip Morris repurposed for a decade in TV ads linking Marlboro cigarettes with its iconic cowboy. Everyone knew those ads, I thought.
Head shakes.
“You’ve heard of Yul Brenner?” Head shakes.
"Steve McQueen?" More head shakes. Blank stares.
I felt adrift. I wanted common ground. “You’ve heard of Richard Nixon?” They brightened and nodded.
“Yes, the former president. He resigned,” one said.
I needed to get my head around this. A classic movie like The Magnificent Seven, 1960, is as remote in time as 1904 was to me when I entered college in 1967 -- 63 years prior. The Model T would not be introduced for another four years. There wouldn’t be talking movies for another 25 years.
But at least there was some shared culture overlap. Reporters on a presidential campaign beat had heard of Richard Nixon. I needed to remember, though, that Nixon’s election in 1968 is as remote in time as Woodrow Wilson’s election was to me back in 1967 when I entered college, registered for the draft, and thought of myself as a young adult. Wilson was an historical figure I had read about; a sour-puss-looking guy in a tight collar who favored the League of Nations, a blatant racist, a Democrat who got elected by a third-party fluke, and who got sick and hid it with his wife's help. That was most of what I knew. I had read about him in books.
I stood there in the crowded office, waiting for Ramaswamy to come in and talk a mile-a-minute and say he is like Trump but younger and with "fresh legs."
My mind wasn't on Ramaswamy. It was young people generally. The interaction with the young reporters brought home the obvious, that we are are strangers living in the same world. The Magnificent Seven, the Marlboro cowboy ads, Yul Brenner, and Richard Nixon were part of my life. For them, it is history, if they know it at all. Cigarette ads on TV ended in 1970, twenty-something years before they were born.
The young women called me “sir” because they are being polite to a doddering visitor from a distant country.
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12 comments:
Even with the 2016 remake of “The Magnificent Seven”, featuring the same classic theme music, and Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt in the Brynner and McQueen roles!
Whoa, not so fast, "Sir." What about Cher and Alexander Edwards?
As I related for my 50th high-school reunion in 2017, I have a hard time thinking about 50 years. As high-school seniors, what did we think of 1917 graduates? Is it possible we’re seen with that same distance? I don’t think so. I mean, 1917 meant no TV; heck, no radio! No air travel and, essentially, no cars or phonographs or movies. In contrast, I detect practically no difference between 1967 and 2017 (or this year): The Internet and smartphones are, of course, new (especially to me) but otherwise, it’s still radio, TV, movies; a ’67 Mustang is just another cool car on today’s roads; blue jeans, tee-shirts and khakis are not so different; we’re still listening to rock, including McCartney and Jagger. In contrast, who knew from 1917 music? Time is all so foreshortened….
The best movie scene on this elder-vs-youth disconnect is the wonderful "Save the Tiger" with Jack Lemmon in an Oscar-nominated role. He at age 50 is smoking dope with some poor youngster who was so amazed to learn we fought Italy in The War. He proceeds to babble and name so many names the lass had never heard of; and he begins to lose it. I was younger when it first came out, in the 70s; now, it's the most telling, powerful scene.
Kids nowadays! They’d probably scoff if we told them how tough we had it – walking to school barefoot through the snow, uphill both ways. Nonetheless, I’m encouraged by the young people who spoke out against gun violence after the Parkland school shooting in spite of a right-wing smear campaign against them, by those suing the government over climate change and by the 15-year-old aspiring reporter whose question about the peaceful transfer of power got him thrown out of a Republican town hall. There may be hope for our republic after all.
I am in the AARP age range. You need to make some effort to stay current, at least a little. Not knowing who Taylor Swift is was very revealing. She is frequently in the national news for one thing or another. Also the local news when she is on tour. Her enormous fan base are called Swifties.
Another thing to consider is that particular movie. It sounds like a dude movie to me. I don't pay attention to Steve McQueen type movies, for example.
These young women probably are familiar with The Wizard of Oz and other classic female-friendly films. I am generalizing, of course, but there are movies that appeal more to women and girls and movies that appeal more to men and boys.
Who is Alexander Edwards?
"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"
"Wait", you say, "aren't we supposed to live in the moment?" I think those who report on the news of the day hardly certainly do. I ponder the thoughts of goldfish.
Prior to the advent of technology the dislocation you experienced was miniscule. Generations had shared realities, and life moved at a slower pace, hardly at all.
Notre Dame took 200 years to build, and the workers who began it didn't see it completed.
Life was more in tune with nature. As we have distanced ourselves from its rhythms we may have gained some comfort to be sure, but it comes with a cost, one we must now settle.
It makes me wonder, where are we headed?
Also, perhaps the young woman made that comment about the people in the hall because they were there voluntarily whereas she was doing her job and being paid to stand in a stuffy, crowded office.
Rick, William Wordsworth hand a handle on being in tune with nature. He experienced the Industrial Revolution as something brand new.
From Intimations of Immortality:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And Cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in out infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,—
He sees it in his joy:
The youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest.
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended:
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
I was part of the 60s. We hippies had the “counterculture” and there was a “generation gap”. The older people (e.g., my parents) did not understand us.
I remember talking to one of my professors at a party. He was wearing a tweed sports coat with leather patches on the elbows and smoking a pipe, the very image of an uptight academic.
I was trying to explain to him where we young people “were coming from” (as we used to say back then). It was not going well.
As the conversation went on, I looked into his head (I was very stoned), and in there was his mind, all dressed up in a tiny little tweed sports coat, smoking a tiny little pipe.
There was no getting past that outer protective shell. Even some really good hash might not have opened it up.
My physics professor (1973) ate so much LSD his lectures involved proving mind-reading scientifically. He was an outlier, and some of us were impressed with him; all the rest were buttoned up tightly.
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