The Whiniest Generation

 

 

Yesterday, in the Costco Parking Lot, a seventysomething woman was trying to squeeze into a narrow spot in her not-so-narrow Cadillac. Between sudden whiplash lurches and the sound of her side-view mirror clumping against the car on her right, she wasn’t happy. “You’re doing fine”, I told her, trying to Boy Scout her into the spot. “I am not doing fine!” she shouted. “It upsets me that I can’t pull right in!” Like it was my fault. Like I was that one said, “Get the triple-wide car, dear.” And I was suddenly filled with the anger of a guy in his mid-30s who is tired of hearing old Americans complain about things.

 

They are, I know, the greatest generation. They stormed the beaches at Normandy and saved the world. And then, back home after years of blood and dirt, they raised bedroom cities, built skyscrapers and atom smashers and sent a man to the moon. But today they mostly drive too slowly. They purchase many of the lame products you see on late-night TV. Politicians can scare a million of them before breakfast, terrify the rest before lunch and claim to “save Medicare” by dinner-time.

 

How did this generation – forged in war, tempered by mortar fire, flinty and rock-tough in their fatigues and counterman’s hat – gets so whiny? How do you get from “Next stop, Berlin!” to “I’ve so old and I can’t get up”?

 

(From: Newsweek. February 17. 2003.)