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Mark Wieting
Okay, someone sent me this, but it is interesting, even though none of us is 80 yet. I do recall that WWII was, in certain ways, close to us. Not only was Victory at Sea on TV [and another that emphasized the ground war, whose name I can't remember right now], but war surplus items were readily available--canteens, belts, shovels, helmets, all the stuff you needed to "play war" with your friends. Anyway, here goes:
The 1% Age Group
This special group was born between 1930 & 1946 = a 16 year span.
In 2023 the age range is between 77 & 93.
Interesting Facts:
You are the smallest group of children born since the early 1900's.
You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war that rattled the structure of our daily lives for years. You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.
You saved tin foil and poured fried meat fat into tin cans.
You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the "milk box" on the porch.
You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, you "imagined" what you heard on the radio.
With no TV until the 1950's, you spent your childhood "playing outside." There was no Little League.
There was no city playground for kids.
The lack of television in your early years meant that you had little real understanding of what the world was like. Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines), and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy). Computers were called calculators; they were hand-cranked. Typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.
'INTERNET' and 'GOOGLE' were words that did not exist. Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on your radio in the evening.
New highways would bring jobs and mobility.
The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands. Your parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into working hard to make a living for their families.
You weren't neglected, but you weren't today's all-consuming family focus.
They were glad you played by yourselves.
They were busy discovering the postwar world.
You entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where you were welcomed, enjoyed yourselves, felt secure in your future although the depression and poverty was deeply remembered.
Polio was still a crippler.
You came of age in the '50s and '60s.
You are the last generation to experience an interlude where there were no threats to our homeland.
The second world war was over and the cold war, terrorism, global warming, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with unease.
Only your generation can remember both a time of great war and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty...
You grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better...
More than 99% of you are retired and you should feel privileged to have "lived in the best of times!"
If you have already reached the age of 80 years old, you have outlived 99% of all the other people currently in the world! "You are a 1%'er"
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