Cars as a Baby Boomers passion

The arrival of the third week in February means the arrival of a national holiday: Presidents Weekend car sales.

I know, I know.

The holiday is really in honor of presidents, but the saturation advertising leading up to the holiday has been all about cars.

It brings to mind the passion we have about cars -- the population in general, but Baby Boomers in particular.

We love cars.

We spend a lot of time in our cars, in part because we have to, in part because we want to.

They become part of our personalities.

We are sometimes prone to naming them, like pets or like children.

Tex the Midnight Rambler was the first car I owned as a student at the University of New Hampshire. It was a Rambler Ambassador with New York plates and an alpha-numeric plate number that began with "TEX".

The first new car I ever owned was a 1976 slant-6 Dodge Dart -- Donnie Dart -- purchased at Portsmouth Dodge (now Port City Chrysler Dodge) on Greenleaf Avenue.

Sometimes we would just rather drive than hassle through pat-downs and bag fees at the airport. The road trip is a beloved American tradition.

We loved the cars we grew up with -- the Chevy Camaro, the Ford Mustang, the Pontiac Firebird, the Dodge Challenger.

We called them "muscle cars" for the muscle they displayed under the hood and for the muscle of a booming American economy built on the manufacture of horsepower encased in steel.

We loved the cars with the bench seats up front and the abandon we showed by having our best girl slide over from the passenger seat and snuggle up right next to us as we cruised the streets. We weren't going anywhere. We didn't need to go anywhere. We just cruised to be seen with our girl ... and our car.

We've given way to seatbelts and airbags and ABS braking systems, but our love for our cars hasn't diminished as our sensibilities for safety, fuel economy, reliability and value have grown.

We still get excited at the introduction of every new model year. We wonder who or what going to capture our attention. A new design. A new gizmo. A new thought that maybe it’s the year to get some new wheels.

Maybe a retro Comaro or Mustang.

Maybe a two-seater convertible.

This love, this passion for cars isn’t part of a mid-life crisis.

We’ve always had this passion for cars. Don’t call it mid-life crisis. Call it a continuing love affair.

Cars as a Baby Boomers passion

The arrival of the second week in February means the arrival of a national holiday: Presidents Weekend car sales.

I know, I know.

The holiday is really in honor of presidents, but the saturation advertising leading up to the holiday has been all about cars.

It brings to mind the passion we have about cars -- the population in general, but Baby Boomers in particular.

We love cars.

We spend a lot of time in our cars, in part because we have to, in part because we want to.

They become part of our personalities.

We are sometimes prone to naming them, like pets or like children.

Tex the Midnight Rambler was the first car I owned as a student at the University of New Hampshire. It was a Rambler Ambassador with New York plates and an alpha-numeric plate number that began with "TEX".

The first new car I ever owned was a 1976 slant-6 Dodge Dart -- Donnie Dart -- purchased at Portsmouth Dodge (now Port City Chrysler Dodge) on Greenleaf Avenue.

Sometimes we would just rather drive than hassle through pat-downs and bag fees at the airport. The road trip is a beloved American tradition.

We loved the cars we grew up with -- the Chevy Camaro, the Ford Mustang, the Pontiac Firebird, the Dodge Challenger.

We called them "muscle cars" for the muscle they displayed under the hood and for the muscle of a booming American economy built on the manufacture of horsepower encased in steel.

We loved the cars with the bench seats up front and the abandon we showed by having our best girl slide over from the passenger seat and snuggle up right next to us as we cruised the streets. We weren't going anywhere. We didn't need to go anywhere. We just cruised to be seen with our girl ... and our car.

We've given way to seatbelts and airbags and ABS braking systems, but our love for our cars hasn't diminished as our sensibilities for safety, fuel economy, reliability and value have grown.

We still get excited at the introduction of every new model year. We wonder who or what going to capture our attention. A new design. A new gizmo. A new thought that maybe it’s the year to get some new wheels.

Maybe a retro Comaro or Mustang.

Maybe a two-seater convertible.

This love, this passion for cars isn’t part of a mid-life crisis.

We’ve always had this passion for cars. Don’t call it mid-life crisis. Call it a continuing love affair.

A nightstand of disorganization

I am very organized … to an annoying fault, in fact.

I re-stack the dishes in the dishwasher after my wife is done loading to make them look more orderly. I have everything of mine in its place in the manner that satisfies my Type A personality.

But I’ve lost control of the reading material on my nightstand.

It’s chaos. It’s a pile of reading material that seems to have no beginning and no end. It is the alpha and the omega, the infinity of disorganization.

My problem is that I’ve given myself too much to read, and the overload has negated my ability to get organized abut it.

My nightstand has just-read books that I haven’t shelved yet in my home office/music conservatory/library.

There are the books that are in the process of being read -- one a biography of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the other a thriller from David Baldacci. God knows if they’ll ever get read. If they are still in the process of being read it usually means I don’t like them very much, but I’m loath to give up on a book.

There is a Jack Higgins books that, looking at it, I’m not sure if I’ve read it or not. I think not since it’s in the middle of the pile. But I’m not really sure.

There is the Robert Parker Spenser mystery I just bought this week and added to the pile.

And there’s the Nook, my electronic book reader that I bought from Barnes & Noble and have loaded with a few books that also have yet to be read. At least with the Nook the unread pile is buried in the electronics so I don’t see it as much.

I read a lot, but I read in spurts.

During the course of a day, my reading is focused on the research I do for my freelance writing and editing work.

My nightstand reading is for, well, nighttime.

And most nights when I crack a book -- or fire up a page, in the case of the Nook -- I don’t read for very long.

By the time I get to bed my brain has devolved to about one quarter speed, so it doesn’t take long for the act of reading to complete unwind me to sleep.

You know the drill. How many times can you read a paragraph before you realize it’s time to close up shop and go to sleep?

I do most of my leisure reading during leisure time.

Maybe the trick is to reorganize my life in general to give me more leisure time. Good luck with that.

Disaffected youth from generation to generation

The Baby Boomers had “Hair”.

The children of Baby Boomers have “American Idiot”.

Both are about disenchanted youth.

And in seeing “American Idiot” last weekend on Broadway I came away with the realization that, from generation to generation, young men and young women get fed up with the world their parents created for them.

The Baby Boomers took the middle class comfort that their parents created after World War II and pushed back against “The Establishment.”

We grew our hair long. We wore loud clothes. We listened to loud music. We opposed a government that wanted to make us fight a war many of us didn’t want to fight.

And a lot of that angst was portrayed in “Hair,” a musical showcase that premiered in 1967 and trumpeted the anti-Vietnam movement and addressed the issues of drug use, sexuality and general irreverence.

The show had 31 songs, unusual for a musical.

It too addresses war, sexuality and drug use.

“American Idiot,” created from the music of the punk pop rock band Green Day, has 30 songs, still unusual for a Broadway musical. It’s more opera than musical.

Frankly, “American Idiot” does a much better job of telling the story of disaffected youth.

It is angrier, less afraid to show the raw emotion of impatience and disgust.

Do we assume the Baby Boomer children are angrier at their parents’ world than the Baby Boomers kids were of their parents’ world?

Not that all Gen Y kids -- the Echo Boomers -- feel alienated to the point of the rage that comes through in “American Idiot”. But you have to respect their willingness to stand up to The Establishment, circa the 21st century.

Are my own Gen Y kids disaffected and alienated? No, not really. They’re trying to make their way in a world we Baby Boomer parents created for them, and it’s not a pretty or easy place to understand or fit into sometimes.

If you’re a Baby Boomer who at any time pushed back against the establishment you’ll appreciate the message of “American Idiot”, even if you liked the music from “Hair” a little more.