The Greatest Generation

--Mr. President! Did you hear about Woodstock?

--Woo-- Woodstock? What in God's name is that?

--Apparently, young people hate the war so much they're willing to participate in a musical sex festival as a protest against it.

--Oh, my God. They must really be serious about this whole thing.

--That's not all. Some of them are threatening to join communes: places where they make their own clothing . . . and beat on drums.

--Stop the war.

--But, Mr. President!

--Stop all American wars!

--(sighs) Very well, sir. I'll go tell the generals.

--Wow. It's a good thing those kids decided to go hear music.

This could well be an opportunity for me to discuss being in the cohort of people born too late to be classed as Boomers and too early to be interpellated as Generation X -- doomed forever to listen to them talk about themselves (by talking about one another). But maybe not just this moment.

It just gets more fascinating, not a whit more tiresome, every year. That much I can tell you.