Growing up in My Generation

Growing up in My Generation

Tony E. Hansen

2 Feb 2017

I am of the Generation X and before reading this week’s selection from Morgan (2002), I had never heard of Generation 13ers.   I will agree that I would get along better with people from before the Boomers.  I can recall being scared of Reagan and Gorbachev especially after watching the mini-series “The Day After” which plot involves the days after a theoretical nuclear war between the US and USSR.  A point made in the movie that applies to any war when an “official” suggests not knowing who fired first, a farmer responds “who cares who fired first??!!  I have to live with this now.” As I mentioned previously, I was absolutely moved by the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, 80’s hair bands as they multiplied, the AIDS scare (which doubled as persecution of gays), the tension of two Germanys uniting and the fall the Berlin Wall, 1^st Persian Gulf war-- all before I reached 18.  With the moments after the Challenger disaster and the Berlin Wall falling, there were beautiful displays of worldly and national kinship.  These became among the first examples to me that even the most horrible events have moments of grace.

With these events we saw a Reagan go from complete threatening against the USSR to shaking hands over missile treaties. The historic events yielded a testament of good from God as the Iron Curtain came down, families reunited and Americans battled (my family included) survived a major recession.  In my current vision of these, the feeling then was that God was on our side, and I (along with many did not consider what happened in Russia).  Religious and general liberty was rising there, but America’s sights were quickly shifted upon our next target in Persian Gulf area.  

I also observed the rise of the Christian Right in the 80s as a viable (albeit questionable) platform and remember being concerned as I heard serious rhetorical distortions of what was taught to me about what Jesus would say.  I remember first hearing Pat Robertson and his CBN “news” and being totally disgusted with how black and poor people were characterized by his labels. I also gained a disdain for tele-evangelical preachers given how much glitter they had and the fact they were complaining that they needed more money.  Man with fancy watch and suit was asking me a man with barely enough for gas?

As the AIDS scare rose, so too did physical and spiritual denunciations of LGBTQ people. The people from CBN-types were blaming LGBTQ for bringing God’s wrath into our country.  The ideology of the Christian Right would eventually push me out of the Republican Party as I thought it was an irony of people wanting freedoms from government but also wanting people to believe and worship a particular way.  As well, religion and the Bible were being used as weapons against LGTBQ people and eventually against me, but I read the same book and found flaws in texts they were using.    

As forming relationships, I formed friendships with older farmers in the communities around Lytton. When I would finish my paper route in the morning, I would often stop in the local café before going to school and have coffee with the guys there.  I heard stories and discussions, but of these, no lasting relationship.  I still have enduring friendships from my time in Leavenworth.  Most of the friends that I had in Rockwell City, kept their distance from me after I came out. My lasting connections (outside of my family) really started forming in my college years with other people around my age, martial art interests or community activism. Even then, I can tell that my focus was more on my work than on my relationships.

As I progressed into my twenties and thirties, I would experience the isolation, self-exile, hypocrisy and discrimination. I lost rights to my son due in part to heavy intervention by some of my “good, Catholic” uncles and aunts because I was “not worthy” to have Tyler as my son. Yet no one questioned their capability to have families… I have only recently been able to reacquaint with my son, but I have lost so much precious time and opportunities with him. Needless to say that experience brought on episodes of depression and anger.  In the words of Star Wars, I felt the dark side.  (I have only begun the process of forgiving these.) Incidentally, This is an extreme example, but one that showcases the difference in generations between Gen X and Boomers.

It was through martial arts and meditation that I learned to calm my mind and frustrations. I would grow strong in knowledge of Asian philosophies through many different works ( a favorite author has been Alan Watts.)  The revelations in the Tao and the Buddhist theories helped me find solace, peace and strength.  I also found God’s message and Jesus here because of how this sounded much more like what was taught to me than anything those televangelists or Catholic leaders were saying.

I also was listening to George Carlin comedic monologues.  Yet, my agreement with his monologues had less to do with the jokes as much as he was talking about the absurdity of special lists of prayers at special times, or the irony/hypocrisy of some people’s beliefs.  One of the monologues really made me think, “…God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice… [what good is a divine plan if anyone with a two-dollar prayer book wants to screw] up the plan?” So yes, I have doubt about some of the teachings that have been passed to me, but even with Carlin’s rant against organized religion, I could here that God’s message did not need to be delivered in a particular kind of box or with particular words.  I can also hear that too many people have used God as an excuse to shun or to exclude people.

I remember hearing the damnations again from the right on Sept 11 and again when hurricanes hit our Gulf coastal areas.  How could people be so cold and callous as to use events like these to exploit and distort the mystery of God??  I hear the vitriol of political discussions today about race, gender and orientation.  I used to enjoy political discussion about policy, and still do today if it stays civil and grounded in reason. I enjoy the lectures presented on TED and NPR these days simply because they use space and silence as part of the presentation. Yet today, that discussion devolves too much into personal attacks and weird innuendos that have little basis in fact or even relevance to the issue at hand.

To be continued…