The Second Greatest Generation

We don't know about you, but we are getting just a little tired of hearing about "The Greatest Generation" and how they had to deal with the Great Depression and the Second World War and still built the most advanced and productive society on earth. O.k., o.k.

The Elder Zookeeper is old enough he knew these folks and they were just folks. He didn't grow up thinking "what impossible paragons of virtue these people are". They were people. They drank, they fought, they had moods. And as for the rest, the "big events" ? Well, let's take a look.

The "Big War" ? WWII ? We've already been in Iraq longer than it took us to beat Germany and if the festivities in that sticken land last through December (and who among us, Oh Best Beloved, thinks they won't ?) then this war will have lasted longer than our entire war from Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki. So put that in your D-Day. With a little luck (bad), we could beat WWII by 50-100%.

And the so-called "Great Depression" ? Just stick around. By the time the perfect storm of peak oil, China and India's energy demands, Bush budget deficits, falling real wages for American workers and the economic calamity triggered by the collapse of the U.S. housing market resulting from the adjustment of all of the adjustable mortgages out there your next career may well be selling apples on street corners ( a treasured image from the last Great Depression).

So, buck up. At the end of your golden years you may well hear our children and grandchildren talking about what a great bunch we were.

Oops. I forgot about the properity and productivity part. Oh well, stay cheerful, stay optimistic and

StayNaked
jd