Generations apart

The subject of this week’s column will be improving communications between generations of Americans.

Translation:

For my Generation X and Y readers: D SBJCT 4 DIS WKS CLMN IZ COMNCTG W/ UR LDRS

For my Baby Boomer readers: We’re going to focus on coping strategies this week to help you communicate your views and your concerns to your younger friends and co-workers in order to help them better understand you and convince them to shed some of their selfish and childish ways to better help you in your quest for self-actualization.

For my Greatest Generation readers: Thanks for kicking Hitler’s butt and making it through the Depression, could you guys please come out of retirement and fix the economy? Thanks.

Generation gaps can create communication gaps as groups of people with different life experiences come together at work or in social situations. To help smooth over some of the differences, and help Generations X and Y understand their boomer friends and co-workers a little better, I’ve prepared a list of questions for the boomers.

Question 1: When are you guys going to be old, already? Sixty is the new 30. You’ve got AARP cards, but don’t want to be called senior citizens. Might I humbly suggest a litmus test? If you get coffee or anything at a fast food restaurant for cheap because of your age, you’re either a toddler or you’re old. Get over it. Personally, I can’t wait to be old so I can get cheap stuff.

Question 2: What’s with this fascination with Bruce Springsteen? The Beatles, I get. Fleetwood Mac, I get. Eric Clapton, I get. But Bruce Springsteen? He sounds like somebody’s drunk uncle singing karaoke on quarter beer night.

I know, I know. He’s so intense, his lyrics tell the story of blue collar America, blah, blah, blah. But really, how authentic is it for a multi-millionaire to be singing about the rest of us poor white trash? When’s the last time this guy missed a credit card payment or had to float a check?

(And to be fair, I admit my generation has put out terrible music, and on behalf of everyone born between the years of 1961 and 1979, I’d like to apologize for the entire last decade of popular music. It has sucked, but not as bad as Bruce Springsteen.)

Question 3: Were the 60s really that great? I mean, half of ya’ll got hauled off to wade around in rice patties and get shot at for no apparent tangible goal while the other half of ya’ll didn’t bathe and got wasted. Sounds like the smart ones among you fled to Canada, not so much to evade the draft, but to dodge the 60s.

Question 4: Were Bill Clinton and George W. Bush the best you guys could come up with? I mean seriously, you guys were supposed to be the most fabulous generation of heaven-blessed people ever to deign to grace the earth with your presence, but the best leaders you could provide were a horny toad and Simple Jack. Really?

Question 5: Why all the criticism about Generations X and Y having an “entitlement” mentality? Aren’t you guys the ones who ran the national debt up to xx trillion by voting yourselves ever-increasing benefits? Aren’t you guys the ones who are going to bankrupt Social Security? Aren’t Generations X and Y expected to be the first generations of Americans to earn less than their parents did? But we’re the ones who have an entitlement mentality, really?

Question 6: Could a great Boomer scientist please update the Copernican model of the universe, so instead of the planets revolving around the sun; the correct model is shown where the earth, the planets, the stars and the sun all revolve around you guys? We don’t want the schoolchildren to learn the wrong thing, now do we?

Jim Cook can be reached at . Hey man, is that Freedom Rock? Then turn it up!