Confessions Of An Alaska Boomer

You CAN Blame Us!

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My Baby Boomer generation grew up in the long shadow of the Greatest Generation--Americans who lived through the Great Depression and fought in WWII for the rights and freedoms guaranteed in our USA and Alaska Constitutions. My father was a member of the following Silent Generation by one year (Born in 1929) but was not gong-ho about having won WWII. He served his military duty honorably and moved on with his life, working his blue-collar gig until self-absorbed IBEW Union retirement.

[1]The Greatest Generation

USA Baby Boomers had it easy, all we had to do was get on the economic gravy train and be honorable. We suffered the Cuban Missile Crisis, assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., But mostly we today continue to experience repercussions of perhaps the worst president until that time, Lynden B. Johnson, who simultaneously accelerated the Viet Nam War while promoting The Great Society social revolution.

It was schizophrenic, and I never expected a worse president in my lifetime.

[2]Lyndon B. Johnson, 36^th President of the United States

President Johnson became great friends with Filipino President, Ferdinand E. Marcos (1965-1986) and helped Marcos transition from President to Dictator. The lens of history has shown Marcos helped Johnson convince the world that the USA fight against Communism in Southeast Asia was noble while the well-documented racist pandered on social issues.

Policies of this time came at great cost to America; we lost in Viet Nam AND the War on Poverty.

My own typical American normal life transitioned with first introduction to Alaska as a desirable place when my elementary school teacher read a book to the class about a family who moved to rural Alaska. A front page story in the Weekly Reader children’s newspaper celebrated Anchorage being named an All-American City. From Albuquerque, NM sweltering heat in a relocatable classroom without air-conditioning, Alaska seemed very exotic. My parents were going through a divorce, Dad had temporary custody of three kids, and I didn’t like my new stepmother any better than she liked me.

Then it happened. My Telephone Man father came home from work one day, dropped his tool belt, and declared: We’re Moving to ALASKA!

I have thanked God continuously ever since for that life transition.