Baby Boomers: The Strangest Generation
A light look at growing up in the 60's and 70's, TV, music, family life, politics, drugs are just a few of the topics we cover. Whether you're a Boomer or not there was no other time like the Strangest Generation.
Baby Boomers: The Strangest Generation
Fathers and Sons: The Generational Divide
Hi, my name is John. This is the podcast that Baby Boomers the Strangest Generation, and it's Father's Day weekend 2025, and I lost my dad at the age of 96 in March of this year 96 in March of this year and it got me to thinking about relationships between fathers and sons and how awkward it could be. But I'm not quite sure if it was just me and my dad that had this type of relationship or if it was sort of universal. I mean, I know that I would watch TV shows and dads and sons got along and you know they had their little problems and you know Mike Brady would teach Greg Brady a lesson about morals and ethics and the half hour it took to record the Brady Bunch. But they never hated each other. But it seemed like that was an inaccurate depiction of what was happening between fathers and sons and the generation that I grew up in.
Speaker 1:I was born in 1960. My father was a Depression-era baby. He was poor. He, at a very early age, had to. His father died.
Speaker 1:I know nothing about his father and he, at the age of 16, had to support his mother and his sister and his brother, his sister and his brother, and then he went off to war in Korea and you know I'd heard all this stuff when I was a kid and I thought it was cool and everything that you know. Dad went to war and everything. Sorry about that. But as I got older I started to ask him how did you wind up in Korea? You know, what compelled you? There wasn't a draft at that time and I asked him why did you go there? And he told me he read an article in the newspaper about what was happening in Korea between the Chinese North Koreans and what became South Korea. And he thought that it was unjust. And it wasn't just him, it was him and all his buddies and working class guys that said Mom, we're going to Korea, we're going to go there, we're going to fight and we're going to put our lives on the line. And I was like what Dad? What the fuck were you thinking? I mean, I couldn't do that. I couldn't live up to that. I couldn't do that. I couldn't live up to that. I couldn't leave my family and go fight a war that had nothing to do with me. I couldn't even understand his logic. Vietnam rolls around and I'm too young to go to Vietnam Again. I'm born in 1960. And guys my age are well older than me, you know my friend's older brothers and my friend's dads that were younger were drafted and had to go to Vietnam. But a lot of guys boomers, a lot of them didn't want anything to do with it and they fled to Canada and they protested and they didn't want anything to do with it and I saw the stark difference between his generation and my generation.
Speaker 1:Now it could be political, you know. It could be like. You know the Koreans really needed us. I mean, god help us. Look at North Korea. If America didn't go there and fight back the Chinese and communists and fight back the Chinese and communists, south Korea would have been part of this weirdo empire that exists over there. Vietnam they sold that as the domino theory. If Vietnam collapses, then the communists the Cold War at the time, the communists are going to take over Southeast Asia and it's just another brick in the wall that's going to eventually wind up hurting or threatening the US and democracy and capitalism, the US in democracy and capitalism.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I'm not sure what happened between my father running to the draft board and the boomer guy running to Canada. I don't know, and I'm not really here to talk about wars and politics. I'm here to talk about fathers and sons, but that kind of highlights the difference between the two generations. But one thing that I am pretty sure of is that I had a tough relationship with my father in my teens, and I think that a lot of guys my age did, and I think it was partly because of this major shift that happened between Korea and Vietnam and the prosperity that baby boomers grew up with. And when I say prosperity, I'm not talking about what these younger Gen Z, x, y's, whatever that, what what they think that we had.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about a guy that grew up in a freaking depression right, was born in a depression and, as opposed to me, who grew up in a. As opposed to me, who grew up in a three-bedroom house with one bathroom, four kids, two adults and five dogs. So it wasn't like I was living the high life, but I wasn't starving. There was a major shift, and it wasn't just politics, it was fashion, it was music, it was drugs. It was music, it was drugs, it was culture. Everything changed overnight and we had nothing in common, me and my dad. Nothing Except for sports, you know, I'll dig into that in a little bit, but everything he did, I did the opposite. Everything he said was stupid and everything I said was ridiculous. And he would walk in a room and I would get up and walk out. And I would walk in a room and he would get up and walk out. And I'm not talking about a bad man at all. I'm talking about a great man, a great father. But I'm talking about two men from different generations that were intimately tied through blood, that just disagreed on every possible thing that they could disagree on.
Speaker 1:So was this awkward, dysfunctional relationship between me and my dad during the 60s and 70s? Was it universal? Well, obviously it wasn't. I mean, mean, there was guys that got along with their dads, but was it universal over eras? Did it happen in the past?
Speaker 1:I remember hearing a uh a radio show and the host was quoting somebody and the guy he was quoting said something like this this new generation of kids are lazy, they're stupid, they have no ambition, they don't know how to dress, they have no respect, they're not going anywhere. And God, help them. We're going to have to raise them and take care of them for the rest of their lives. Help them. We're going to have to raise them and take care of them for the rest of their lives. And I'm thinking, okay, the guy's quoting, like Richard Nixon or FDR, you know somebody. It turned out he was quoting Socrates from BC, you know, before Christ was born.
Speaker 1:And I said my gosh, this stuff between dads and sons has been going on since the beginning of time. We just had to go head to head and I wondered we're boomers and I'm assuming you know most of you guys that listen to this show, you're boomers. You've lost your dad. He's gone now. My dad lived so long. It's just fresh for me. But I don't know if you had that kind of relationship, but my best guess is that you probably did.
Speaker 1:And I wonder if, because of the times, that that the boomers versus the so-called greatest generation, the conflict between father and son was more pronounced than it was in previous generations. And I say that because the way the world changed so quick, you know from my dad growing up poor, my dad going off to fight a war, my dad having to deal with technology, new automobiles, new automobiles, the introduction of drugs into culture, the introduction of rock music, the introduction of his short, slick back hair, sport coat, shiny shoes versus my dungarees, beat-up sneakers and long hair. We just tried to be different than our dads. I mean, we worked hard to be different and it pissed them off because they were tough dudes and I guess dads and sons have always had this animosity especially teen sons with their dads and it tends to fade away as you get older and you know, get to know your dad and he gets to know you and you know things can still flare up.
Speaker 1:But there was just this seismic shift in culture that really made the father-son relationship a nuclear bomb. It wasn't just like dad's an dad sucks. Wasn't dad gone? Johnny's dumb, I can't stand looking at him. You know it was Dad. I hate everything you stand for and he's like Son. I hate everything you stand for and it sucked. I hated my dad and he never did anything bad to me, nothing. But you know I'm in this new culture where you know fuck the man, fuck the establishment, fuck the tie. I'm not wearing a tie, you know I'm growing my hair. I'm saying look it, man, I'm not playing your game. My dad's working in a steel mill for the man, hoping to get a pension and hoping to get the hell out of there, hoping to feed his family, and I'm goofing around smoking pot and around smoking pot, aimless, hating the government, hating America. You know, and I didn't even know shit about politics or anything like that, but it was just a thing to do, man. You know, my dad's drug was a friggin' Harvey Wallbanger. You know that's what he would drink. My drug was acid, lsd Pot Shit that they never heard of and they didn't know what it was and it scared the shit out of them.
Speaker 1:And you know, it wasn't like I was an easy kid. I was an asshole, I was stupid. I did everything wrong that I could think of. I got into tons of trouble. I had a smart mouth.
Speaker 1:My dad actually one summer banned me from talking. He said you're going to shut your fucking mouth because everything that comes out of it is negative and you're a smartass and you can't talk to me. And I was like, really, man, I can't talk to you. Well, you know what? I don't want to talk to you. And it was a sad day. We didn't talk, we stopped talking.
Speaker 1:I remember he would have to drive me Every morning. He would go to work at the seal plant and he would have to drive me to a bus stop and every morning we would sit in silence on that 10-minute drive and not say a word to each other and not say a word to each other. And I don't know if it was just teenage angst, that teenage rebellion where you they say, you're just trying to separate from your parents and show that you're independent. No, I couldn't stand them and he couldn't stand me. Now this is it's getting a little heavy here, because I love my father and he loved me, but I didn't like him and he didn't like me. He was so different than I was and I did everything I could to piss him off and he did everything he could to keep me in line. Thank God for my mother, because he would have killed me.
Speaker 1:The shit I did. I did a First recording of this podcast. I did. I'm not gonna publish where I get into some of the stuff that I.
Speaker 1:I did that as a kid that you would understand what my father friggin hated me. You know he was a stand-up guy, straight arrow, and I was out of control and I didn't kill anybody or anything like that, but I'd do anything just to friggin' piss him off. And then he's got to deal with these drugs, right? He don't know shit about this stuff, but he knows that he finds a big bag of marijuana under my bed and he's like what the hell is this? And he thought it was like you know, heroin. They didn't know. And I'm like, dad, you gotta understand something, man, you gotta give me that shit back, because if you don't, I'm in big trouble. I remember he just took the bag it was like a quarter pound. He took it and just threw it at me and told me, get out of here and get that shit out of my house and don't ever bring it back. And, uh, he didn't know what he was dealing with, what it was, you know, now it's legal everywhere.
Speaker 1:Actually, my dad, in his end stage of cancer, was taking marijuana and we laughed so hard, me and him, about it about, you know, when I smoked pot and, you know, sold pot. Now he's getting it. Now I'm driving him to the dispensary to get pot and we had a good laugh over that and it did really help him a lot with his appetite and his anxiety as he went through the late stages of cancer. But I'll tell you one thing he's my father, I'm his son. He's a good man, I'm an alright kid. Yeah, I'm an asshole, but you know I'm a teenage asshole. You never know what I'm going to wind up being, but you're pretty sure I'm going to be an asshole as a teenager.
Speaker 1:And there was one thing my dad did that was so smart. He kept two mitts baseball and a bat and even though we couldn't talk to each other, we would get out and throw that ball back and forth, throw grounders, pop flies, and we'd have fun and we'd connect without talking, because he knew, you know, I got to hold on to this kid somehow, and this is the one thing that I know that he knows is sports and we watched sports together and we really connected. Man, I remember I grew up in an NFL city with a hockey team and basketball and NBA team and you know me and my dad, we did that. We were into boxing and no matter how bad shit was, no matter what the stupidest fucking thing that I did, god damn if the bills were playing Sunday me and him were there and talking and watching.
Speaker 1:Now, these guys were tough, these greatest generation. I don't know why I don't like that phrase. It just they were great, but it's just an awkward phrase. Anyway, he was part of that generation that just came from nothing and reshaped America, and they had no emotions. These men had no emotion at all. I'll tell you something they were full of emotion, but their code was you cannot show emotion.
Speaker 1:I never once saw my mother and father hug or kiss. I never heard them argue, Unless it was about me. My dad never, ever, told me that he loved me and I'm not boohooing, I am not saying, oh, poor me. Dad never told me he loved me. I knew he loved me. He didn't have to tell me, but I used to tell him all the time, just to bust his balls. I would tell him hey, dad, you know I love you, right, and he'd be like yeah, I know, it's the score of the game. You know they, they couldn't show emotion. It was crazy. They had to bottle the shit up, and you know why? Because the shit that they saw during that depression, during that war, the shit that they saw. They had to learn to tuck that emotion away and come home and just not let anybody know the horrors that they saw, the horrors that they did. And so they battled it up and became like robots and they were all like that. I swear I don't know anybody my age whose father ever showed any frigging emotion. I never saw my dad cry. He buried a daughter, my sister, not a tear.
Speaker 1:I took him on a thing called the honor flight, where older veterans of foreign wars would be flown in through this charitable organization into Washington. And these are all the guys the last remaining World War II people, the Korean guys and the Vietnam guys and they would fly them in and they got treated like heroes. And they were, and they got executive service from the beginning to the end. We're walking through the airport, we land in DC. We're walking through the airport and every one of those people at the gate as we're walking through, all the guys were in wheelchairs and their sons were pushing them. They would stop whatever they were doing, boarding a flight and they would say Ladies and gentlemen, you're about to see American heroes, these are the veterans of foreign wars passing gate number 42 right now and everybody would clap and everybody would be like oh, thank you for your service.
Speaker 1:And these dudes, these stone cold, emotionless dudes, would just stare straight ahead and not say a word. My dad looked up to me. They're clapping for him and my dad says I gotta take a piss. I'm like, dad, do you see what's happening? You're a hero. He's like I really gotta pee and I don't get it. Is he putting this out? Is he fake? Did he just learn how to turn his shit off his emotions, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Anyway, to continue this story, I don't know if you've ever been to the mall in Washington DC where Lincoln's memorial and Washington's monument is. They have all these tributes to the several wars that America's been in. You're familiar with Vietnam, the wall where all the names are. They have a huge one for World War II, civil War, every war we've been in. We've been in a lot of wars, man.
Speaker 1:But I want to tell you something. You go up to that Korean War Memorial and it is scary as shit. It's a bunch of guys, bronze guys. They're standing about 7, 8 feet tall and they're dressed in military I guess you'd call it rain gear and they're walking through a rice paddy and they all got guns. And I don't know a lot about art, but I'll tell you what. Whoever the guy that sculpted this stuff was man it was.
Speaker 1:I'm there on a sunny day, yet somehow this sculptor made me know that it was night time when these guys are walking through this rice paddy, and he made me realize that by the looks on their faces, these statue guys, that they were terrified, they were in danger, they were open fodder for whatever was hiding behind the next rock. And I'm looking at these dudes and I'm looking at my dad and I'm like Dad, what the fuck man? What were you thinking? Why did you do that? And he's got nothing to say, just keeps walking. It was like he didn't even see it. Now is he putting it on? Is he crying inside and just being brave? No, he just buried it. He didn't care.
Speaker 1:So here's the weird thing we're there at this memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and a tour bus pulls up with a bunch of South Korean tourists who are pretty much old ladies, as old as the guys, the American guys in the tour. They're the same age. So the guys that fought, the American guys that fought for Korea, are running into a tour bus of people who they saved. And when they realized who each other was, when they went through the interpreters and said this is who these guys are, this is who these women are, and the Korean women just went berserk, not berserk. They became so emotional. They're running up to these guys, they want pictures, they're hugging them, they're thanking them, they're crying. They're. I don't know what they're saying because I don't speak Korean, but I'm pretty sure they're saying thank God I'm not part of North Korea. And it's probably because of what you guys did.
Speaker 1:And you know what my dad and every one of those stone-cold motherfuckers did not crack a smile, did not shake a hand, did not. They just didn't have any emotion at all. Now, when I rose, raised my kids, I made a vow that I am not going to be like that. They're going to see me hug my wife. They're going to see me kiss. I'm going to tell them I love them all the time. I want them to see me cry when my dog dies, or you know, I want to show out. I just don't want them to think that I'm a robot. I don't want to miss out on. What my dad missed out on is, you know, sharing these conversations and these emotional stories of his past. And now it's kind of out of control. You know, every time I see my kids, you know they're hugging me and kissing me and telling me you know it's like all right. You know I still got a touch of my dad in me. You know it's like all right. You know I still got a touch of my dad in me. But that day in Washington DC was a real eye-opener. And it wasn't just him, it was every one of them Stone cold, emotionless.
Speaker 1:My dad taught me a lot of other stuff, not just to show no emotion. My dad taught me to work. To get what you want, you work. I remember we needed a refrigerator. A refrigerator broke and my dad was like, all right, we're going to get a new refrigerator. And we're like, well, how are we going to do that? And he's like I'm going to get a second job and we're going to save every penny until we can afford this refrigerator. And damn it, he did it. And then he kept the second job.
Speaker 1:My dad had so many jobs I swear to God he would work, he would do anything to make a living. He worked at the steel plant predominantly, but there was a lot of strikes and there was a lot of layoffs and things like that. So he sold. He was at Sears, he sold appliances. He was a this is no shit. He was a door to door bible salesman and he would knock on doors and try and sell people Bibles. And I said, dad, come on, this is crazy. I said, did you ever sell a Bible? He said no, never. He said until I learned the one thing when they told me no, I held the Bible up and I would say don't tell me no. Tell him no. And I sold the first Bible and then, after that, he quit. He said I couldn't take it, but my dad would do anything to make a living and he taught me about hard work, and it's a good thing, man.
Speaker 1:My dad taught me how to treat women. He taught me chivalry, and I don't know if it's gone or you know, women have become so strong and so independent that maybe chivalry is an old-fashioned idea that is antiquated now. But you know what? I'm still going to give up my seat. I'm still going to help you carry your groceries. If you're a lady, I'm going to hold the door for you, and I don't think that could in any way be a bad thing. I don't see how it could be, and any woman that I ever do that for is never offended. They don't always take me up on it. You know, can I have, you know please? I say please. You know I got a bad back. You can sit down, and they may or may not sit down, but I don't think there's anything wrong with treating a woman good and I'm not saying that this new generation treats them bad. But really, man, sometimes I see like guys and a woman walking down the street and the woman's got all the groceries and the guy's pushing the baby carriage. And I don't want to sound old fashioned, but that just don't make sense to me. I'm a boomer.
Speaker 1:I was raised by the greatest generation. You respect women. You're big, you're strong, you provide, you protect big. You're strong, you provide, you protect. And that's all right with me. It's all right with me.
Speaker 1:Our dads were rigid. They were unflexible. They believed what they believed and that was it. They didn't change. Went to his grave still making fun of my nephews who were overly tattooed. Even though he had a tattoo when he was you know, you couldn't even see it anymore by the time he was older. But they'd walk in with their tattoos the girls and boys, the younger kids in the family. He'd be like what a frigging tattoo. Look at your hair, get a man's haircut For crying out loud. They couldn't be flexible and I learned from watching that to be flexible and to not give a shit about how somebody dressed or how they didn't conform and they had conformity drilled into their frigging brain because they were military people and they were brought up in a society that there was rules about how you behaved and nobody veered from those rules and it was ingrained in them and in a weird way, my dad taught me, in a roundabout way, flexibility by watching his inflexibility. By watching his inflexibility.
Speaker 1:My dad and my mom were not racist and in the era that we grew up in, racism was really different and more open. Yeah, I grew up in North so it wasn't that that bad. But you know there were still. You know jokes and you know black dudes didn't get ahead and didn't get all the opportunities and stuff like that. But thankfully my mom and dad were never like that and I'm sure a lot of you Baby Boomer guys your parents weren't like that, thank God.
Speaker 1:You know I'm Irish Catholic and my first wife was Italian. I brought her home, I went and married this girl. My mother is like almost having a heart attack. My father is starting to come up with all the racial slurs that you could call an Italian guy at that point. They had them for us too. It was just a way he had tons of Italian friends, but all they wanted to know is is she Catholic? And they wound up loving her and I married. I stayed married to her and had children for for many years.
Speaker 1:But the real test came. Many years later, I got divorced from my first wife, who is a wonderful woman, and raised our wonderful children, and then I brought home a black girl and I'm like, man, dad, what are you going to think? How's it going to go? How's it going to go? Dad, you weren't racist, you forbid it and it was all around us. We lived in one neighborhood, they lived in another neighborhood, and you just didn't cross paths. But my father was never openly racist at all. So I'm like, how's this gonna go? And it was a little rocky, I gotta tell.
Speaker 1:I got a guy in his late 80s who is, yeah, steelworker, war veteran, and his son leaves one woman and is going to marry a young, pretty black girl, pretty black girl. And he, he had a little bit of a hard time with it and I don't blame him. In fact I give him credit because, from how he was raised of the time, he could have gone in any direction with this thing and his initial direction was like oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And then they became friends Because she's a great woman and he was able to really accept her and they had become friends, secret friends. It was so sweet. They kidded each other and they had their private jokes and I was just so proud of my dad and I was so proud of how they raised me and I was so proud of my black new wife, who was not going to take any shit.
Speaker 1:You know, when we first met I'd bring her to the family and we were going to take a picture of her all out for dinner or whatever. She would just push up against him in the picture and put her arm around him and she'd be like look at, buddy, I'm here to stay and I'm funny, I'm going to make you laugh and I'm going to hug and kiss you when they take that picture. And my dad wound up really loving it and two fine people wound up having a sweet relationship. And she was there when my dad passed in hospice and he knew she was there and she said all I could do is give him water and a sponge. And she walked up and he could only open one eye and she said I bet you wish you had the good stuff, the stuff that they would sneak off and drink. And somehow he managed a little grunt, a little smile, and so they were tough, but they came around, they came around. So they were tough, but they came around. They came around and Baby Boomers, the sons of these warriors, the sons of the men that built America with their hands, with their steel, our bridges, our automobiles, our skyscrapers.
Speaker 1:They were tough. They were tough on us, but they had a lot to teach and I thank God for that generation. I thank God for my dad. I know most of the people listening, most of the guys listening my age, have lost your dad and I hope that your dad was as good as my dad, as great as my dad, and I want to say happy Father's Day to you and happy Father's Day to your dads. Have a great Father's Day, guys. Thank you.