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To the Young Adults Who Believe I Have Stolen Your Future
I would not be writing you without a text forwarded to me during the bad old days of COVID-19 — Infect a Boomer. Save the Future. This statement upended me. What had my generation done to merit this actionable death wish?
I paced and ranted to myself and Moses, my pit bull. I swore I’d write a response. But my writing muse was masked. And there was so much to do, like finding hand sanitizer and toilet paper, making a homemade mask, watching Governor Beshear’s daily COVID report, and reserving a niche at Cave Hill Cemetery, just in case.
Now it is 2024. Despite time passed, I still remember the lyrical lines, Infect a Boomer. Save the Future in the same way I remember that Dr. Seuss’s Sam-I-am did not like green eggs and ham.
We seem to be living another fateful year, with one presidential candidate who has been in our heads, in our homes, and in our families for way too many years. An angry man whose superpower is to divide us by creating heroes and villains. He is the self-appointed arbiter of good and evil. Such binaries are dangerous.
This is a tough time for the generations and a great time for sweeping stereotypes. Gen Z lives in an alternate universe. GenX is cynical. Boomers are clueless. Millennials feel entitled.
