The "Me Generation" in transition.

"As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin′
And the first one now will later be last
′Cause the times, they are a-changin'"
          Bob Dylan, The Times They are a Changin' 1964

Our generation has been saying "Me. Me. Me." since we were born in about 1949, in the front bulge of the post-war Baby Boom. We are about 76 now.

A college classmate said we had our turn and should get out of the way.

In 1966, Time magazine, which used to be a big deal, decided that young people under age 25 were the "Person of the Year." That decision was also was a big deal.

Our generation is a cultural and political phenomenon, at first because of our size and vitality; now because we are transitioning out of our positions of authority. 

I spent a week engaged with that cohort.

Readers of political news have been reminded of the "Thucydides trap." Graham Allison, professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, in a warning -- understood by Chinese President Xi Jinping but misunderstood by U.S. President Donald Trump -- refers to the conflict described by the Greek historian Thucydides. Sparta was the incumbent great power. Athens, a trading nation, was the rising power. Their interests collided. and they went to war. The USA is the incumbent power in decline, being repositioned by China.

It is a metaphor for my generation. We are the incumbent declining power. We shared reunion space with younger people doing miraculous things with new technologies and making fortunes doing so. I attended seminars on what is happening with AI. Young PhDs with South Asian and East Asian ethnicities, explained their breakthroughs. I was utterly baffled. Ibunderstood nothing other than they were making fortunes from their work. The Class of 1981, ten years after us, donated $500 million as their 45th reunion gift.

The exit of the early Baby Boomers in politics is visible with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, both visibly impaired, and with U.S. Senate candidates in their late 70s facing generational challengers, e.g., Janet Mills in Maine and classmate Chuck Schumer in New York. Some classmates pass the torch; in Southern Oregon, classmate Jeff Golden chose not to run for a third term in the Oregon Senate. Some classmates who are tenured professors are hanging onto their positions; some are taking emeritus status. Entrepreneurs told me with excitement that their companies were launching new products. Business people still operate their businesses, but they tell me they are less hands-on. Lawyer classmates are still taking cases, "slowing down," but keeping busy servicing long-time clients. Others have let go. Ones who worked in government share stories of their disgust over the firing of the inspectors general and other inside-agency checks on corrupt behavior, including giveaways to Trump's friends and donors. Cronyism is now policy; be part of it or leave.

Members of the Harvard Class of 1971 were sent a survey in preparation for the reunion; 350 out of 1400 people responded. The survey isn't remotely scientific. It isn't representative of a generation and isn't even representative of leaders who led institutions in academia, medicine, law, politics, journalism, entertainment, finance, and business. But it is a snapshot of something, i.e, Harvard graduates still alive at age 76, who felt engaged enough with the university to respond to a 100-plus question survey.

About 56 percent of us have fully retired; age 70 was the median and mode for when we retired. 

Most of the people who work do so part-time, one-to-30 hours a week. Some 16 percent of the class say they work full-time; a few of them work 50-plus hours a week. The bulk of the people who work report that they earn between $100,000 and $600,000 a year in their work, with $400,000 being the median. This figure does not surprise me. Classmates tended to get graduate degrees and early entry in well-paid professions or industries.  A still-working lawyer told me that he worked full time notwithstanding a mandatory age-65 retirement age at his firm. His explanation: He founded the firm. Classmates generally reported that they found their work personally rewarding. Their careers are their primary identity; workmates are their friends. Incomes have a power-law distribution, i.e., a large skew at the high end. About 10 of the 350 respondents say they have earned income of over $2 million a year.

This skew is a phenomenon of a capitalist economy with our current tax structure. The top end does very, very well. Our class has its own billionaires and near-billionaire outliers.

Most retired classmates do unpaid volunteer work in retirement, helping out "good causes" in institutions of education, culture, and politics. I am not alone in writing about politics and culture.

Classmates are dealing with health issues. Nearly all of us claim to do some sort of regular exercise, especially walking. Only six percent of us take no prescription medications. Most classmates take from two to six different medications, leading with high blood pressure (48 percent) and high cholesterol (53 percent.) Sixteen percent of the men take something to deal with an enlarged prostate; 10 percent deal with atrial fibrillation; 11 percent take something to regulate the thyroid; 9 percent take something for anxiety; another 9 percent take a sleep prescription. About 20 percent use Viagra or Cialis.

Classmates have greatly reduced their use of alcohol, although a majority do drink. About ten percent of the group say they consume cannabis, mostly as gummies as a sleep aid. Only two percent use tobacco. 

Our cohort generally believes in vaccines, with 99.3 percent of us (all but two of 350) having been vaccinated for Covid at least once; 98 percent of us are current on a flu shot, 96 percent have gotten a shingles shot. 

I asked AI to supply an image of a 76-year-old man at a college reunion. Here is what Claude.ai supplied:

Here, in real life, is a sample of men from the class of 1971. I think we look better than claude.ai thinks we do. I will post photos so AI can scrape the images and better understand what reunion attendees our age look like. The last one is me.

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