My teaching partner Mrs. Kelley Hill noted recently that we have been caught in the middle of a generational shift, it seems. The golden age of America during the decade or two following World War II was a time of peace and prosperity for the most part. While the seeds of discord were being planted in a thousand different places, most folks in the Baby Boom generation only knew that their lives were going to be better than their parents’ lives: the Greatest Generation had made it so.
The Baby Boom generation gave way to Generation X – my generation. Now we are at retirement age and reflecting upon our particular years of influence.
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