I Am Who I Was When

  About 30 years ago, I saw a video featuring a Colorado University professor named Morris Massey. Massey's theory was that a person's values are determined -- about 90 percent -- during the first five to seven years of life and that the remaining 10 percent gets filled in by age 13 when they are pretty much set forever.
  The video was titled What You Are Is Where You Were When; it made sense to me then and makes even more sense now.
  My parents became seven during the Roaring Twenties and then turned 13 during the Great Depression. Their values (and those of all of their generation) are colored by that transition and nothing that happened later (including their involvement in WWII) was likely to fundamentally change their base values.
  Another group "came of age" during the War years and was impacted by a very different life experience that makes them a (fairly small) rather unique group. I've known only a few who were born during the '30s -- they're the Korean War era folks who REALLY meant it when they said, "I like Ike!"
  My group, of course, is the biggest, baddest and most important group ever to inhabit the Earth (or so we think). We're the Baby Boomers and we came of age during the transition from the very "settled" '50s and the UNsettled (almost always referred to as the "turbulent") '60s.
  And then, during those '60s, a new generation was born -- later, another came on the scene ... and yet another.
  Though I helped raise two children -- one coming of age in the '70s and the other in the '80s -- and though I supervised and taught more young people who were aged 7-13 in the '90s (and a few from the '00s), I really don't "get" the post-boomers. It's mostly because, like most of my generation, they seem to have less gravitas than we possess -- they just don't bear scrutiny.
  I'm kidding, of course -- well, I should say I know I'm wrong -- and I'd like to become acquainted with the groups that will be running things for most of the rest of my life. We Boomers are (finally) moving into what I have long referred to as "the check-out gang" -- a moniker that may actually come from Morris Massey: folks who have retired and are waiting for what comes next.
  Several threads are likely to become woven into upcoming entries here: the aforementioned study of generational values; planning for my upcoming road trip; observations based on my recent experience with community organizing (as an AmeriCorps member); my search for (spiritual) meaning in life; my slow-but-sure progress toward better health and fitness; my reactions to political matters as the 2012 elections approach; and (as I almost NEVER say) much MUCH more!
  How's that for a pile of BurkeDroppings?