What defines your generation (to you)?

[Zoning Goddess]

AIB Otterpop, I am listening to actual 33-rpm albums while the child is away tonight. I don't feel like one of the "mature" Cyburbians mentioned on some threads, having an 11-year old, being soccer mom and coach, den leader, etc.

I was too young for Vietnam but I wore hip-huggers and platform shoes the first time around.
I have a 45-rpm of "Hey Jude" that I bought at JC Penney.
I remember Walter Cronkite signing off, and still miss Johnny Carson, who I grew up watching (when George Carlin wore a suit and tie and was conservative)
I saw Tiny Tim get married on t.v., Billie Jean King defeating Bobby Riggs, the first moon landing, the draft lotteries, the miracle hockey team, Star Trek in first run, remember Bobby Kennedy being shot, and pigging out at McDonald's for under a dollar (2 burgers, fries, and shake).
My first concert was Bob Seger in 1972, when he pretty much only played in Michigan and Florida.
I saw Mary Poppins, The Great Race, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the Andromeda Strain in movie theaters.
And I remember Florida before Disney!

What are the signature moments of your generation, as you remember them?

 

[sisterceleste]

You left out the availability of birth control pills.

 

[Zoning Goddess]

You left out the availability of birth control pills.

Maybe I wasn't as precocious as some people... ;-)

 

[sisterceleste]

Maybe I wasn't as precocious as some people... ;-)

Percocious????? You mean like majoring in college in Applied Anatomy????? 8-!

 

[steveanne]

Born in '76, but a true child of the 80's:

First concert was Huey Lewis and the News in May 1986 at the Rochester War Memorial (now the Blue Cross Arena). I was three rows from the farthest back you could get from the stage.

I remember playing Yars Revenge on the Atari 2600 as well as Superman, but not knowing if I could actually beat the game. Was there an ending to that game? I remember a very pixellated Lois Lane kissing you.

I remember Max Headroom. And trying to talk like him.

I enjoyed playing with Star Wars action figures and getting my R2-D2 stuck in the back of the snow speeder. I think it is still there in my basement. I remember my mom marking all of my figures on the bottom of the feet with a green marker so I'd know which ones were mine. I wish she wouldn't have done that.

I watched the Muppets and wanted to be cool like that blue dude with the saxophone. I remember leaving the TV on after the muppets and wondering why everyone thought Benny Hill was so funny.

But one defining moment for me was when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. I was in school and they made the announcement that the shuttle had blown up and there were no survivors, and for some reason I thought they meant the shuttle bus to the junior high school (I was 10 years old). I'm pretty sure I freaked out.

 

[NHPlanner]

The Challenger Explosion (was in 6th grade, and christa McAulliffe was from my hometown).

The Berlin Wall coming down.

 

[JNA]

in 7th Grade (69-70) I had a Music teacher, who had us listen to
The Who's "Tommy" 8-! :8:

I also saw the Andromeda Strain in a movie theater. Thanks ZG for reminding me.

Being in NYC harbor on a Moran Tug watching the TALL Ships on July 4, 1976.
same yr I graduated from HS.

Having been a Volunteer Firefighter/EMT before the Dept. went through the transitional steps to becoming paid.

 

[Trail Nazi]

Percocious????? You mean like majoring in college in Applied Anatomy????? 8-!

Tee hee. Was someone a little wild?
;-)

For me, Saturday morning cartoons and after-school specials.

 

[Zoning Goddess]

But one defining moment for me was when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. I was in school and they made the announcement that the shuttle had blown up and there were no survivors, and for some reason I thought they meant the shuttle bus to the junior high school (I was 10 years old). I'm pretty sure I freaked out.

I was leaving for work in a west FL town, glanced up, saw the contrails and after a lifetime here, thought something ain't right. By the time I got to work, it was all over the news.

Tee hee. Was someone a little wild?
;-)

.

I was a geographer. Take a guess.

 

[Trail Nazi]

I was a geographer. Take a guess.

So are you saying that you have a dot on the map for the places you visited? Or would you say that you would go with your original major and say you studied man.

 

[Chet]

The Challenger Explosion (was in 6th grade, and christa McAulliffe was from my hometown).

The Berlin Wall coming down.

Both of those, plus...

As an 8 year old, being truly affraid of a nuke war happening.

The pope being shot.

Reagan being shot.

U2

Cd Players, then DVD Players

A quote by Bill Gates, "No one will ever need more than 64k of RAM memory.

The Mars missions.

Columbia breaking up.

GW1.

9-11.

GW2.

Same sex marraiges.

The death of Andy Kaufmann. Oh wait, scratch that one.... :-\

 

[jordanb]

You young at heart chet? ;-)

I think 9/11 will be the defining moment of my generation, unfortunatly.

I mean, hopefully nothing worse happens in the next five years or so. :-c

 

[mike gurnee]

I vividly remember watching film clips of the Berlin wall being built. sorry, younguns.

 

[Wulf9]

There was a public affairs conference in college. The topic was "how will the United States win the War in Vietnam." A few people showed up opposing the war. Nobody understood what they were talking about.

A year later we all understood. A President had used false information to start a war that sent 50,000 American soldiers to their deaths.

And...concerts at the Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore, and Winterland.

And peace marches where American soldiers had machine guns trained on American citizens. But without those marches, the President would have kept sending Americans off to their deaths.

And, much later, living in a codger-ocracy where where selfish adults are intent on consuming for the moment and passing on a lower standard of living to their kids (a sad commentary on my generation).

 

[pete-rock]

I remember...

The disco era, and thinking that I couldn't wait until I was old enough to kick it like they did then;

The onset of AIDS as a teenager, and thinking that I'd never have sex like the people of the '70s;

Being really concerned during the '80s that the Cold War was coming to a much darker end than it did;

Anti-apartheid and Free Mandela marches on campus; although I felt like for most they were just an excuse to march for something.

I have to admit, though, that since I was born in that post-Boomer/pre-Gen-X period (born in '64), that I always felt like there was nothing really to define my generation.

 

[kms]

I remember watching (on TV) VietNam vets returning to US.

Getting a colored TV.

My uncle, who was visiting, asking "How many coloreds live in this town?" :-c

 

[JNL]

energy drinks... text messaging... the simpsons.... hipsters.... 9-11...

 

[H]

well, that is simple, the letter x and anything x-treme!

 

[ebeech121]

Oh Acide-wash and Neon-brites!

Since I'm a youngen (born in 1982)...I don't remember much of the 80s except big bouncy balls, jellies, the Fraggles and the first day of kindergarten (1988).

So, I am a child of the 90s where everything was neon and rap was cool. The beat-box kind of rap. That only 8 year olds can produce. We always made stupid rap songs for school projects. Gag. (Don't get me wrong, I love rap and hip-hop).

I also remember "Please, Don't Go Girl" and I'm pretty sure I was "Hangin Tough" in my huge black sunglasses and reebok hi-tops. That had those twisted laces so I never had to tie my shoes.

I was in 2nd grade when we were in Iraq the first time. My cousin was over there. I remember seeing alot of sand on the news. That's it.

The mid-90s brought (for me and millions other 14 year old girls) lots of eye candy with Devon Sawa and all those other teeny-bopper boys. Who are all grown up and not as cute as they used to be.

Who remembers watching Alf, America's funniest videos, and the first Simpsons episodes for the first time ever?

I miss being 12. 1994 was a good year.

Oh yeah! Those clear plastic buckle-flap purses that all the girls on 90210 had. Those were horrible!

 

[Michele Zone]

I barely remember hippies and all that '60's stuff.

My husband talks endlessly about the '70's and bellbottoms and corduroys. And how much he hated them.

I was at work -- at K-mart -- when the Shuttle exploded. I must have been coming back from a break or something because I was walking past the TV's and saw it air.

I was in Germany when the Berlin Wall came down -- with a couple of toddler boys on my lap, watching it on TV. East and West Germany reunited while I lived there. When it did so, they quit checking ID's on the American base. A few weeks later, we went to war in the Middle East. Suddenly you had to have two photo ID's to get on base -- your military ID and a second one to back it up.

I spent the last 8 or 10 months over there cleaning out my closets, preparing for the move back stateside. I cleaned out my closets by sending endless packages to an East German aunt. When the two Germanies reunited, prices in East Germany tripled. Suddenly, her retirement money barely paid her rent. I got glowing thank you letters and cards from her constantly. I sometimes had to call my mom to find out what they said since my German isn't very good. This was in stark contrast to my white trash, welfare in-laws. I sent them up to 49 packages a year for a while there. I never got a single "thank you" note from them. I no longer speak to them. (That could be an entry in a "Why America is Going To Hell" thread.)

The first mission to Mars.

AIDS became news while I was in high school, ending the so-called "sexual revolution".

 

[Rem]

Mobile phones, the arrival of the environment as a first tier political issue, floating the Australian dollar, privatisation, professional Rugby, Bhopal, credit cards.

 

[michaelskis]

I was born in 78, and my earliest memory is watching the 1980 US Hockey team beat the Soviet Team. (I am from the Upper Peninsula, hockey is a big deal up there)

I also remember the first episode of the wonder years, and watching the A-Team, Knight Rider, Full House (then the Olson twins where just babies) , Thunder Cats, and Voltron. I had and Atari with pit fall, donkey kong, and seaquest. I also remember Regan getting shot, and watching the challenger explode on live TV. I also remember watching Baby Jessica being rescued from a well, and seeing “Nelson” in concert and my dad getting us back stage passes. What ever happened do them, did they cut their hair yet? I remember when at the video store we had a choice between VHS and Bata, and “NEW COKE!” I also remember watching the NMU wildcats with the NCAA hockey championship in 1991. I remember when Jerry Lewis was thin, and SNL was funny.

 

[Gedunker]

Some others:

MLK, Jr. A terrible price to pay for freedom
Nixon's resignation
Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I and Pope John Paul II, all within 40+ days during the summer-fall of my Freshman year of college
Shah of Iran and the arrival of Ayatollah Khomeini: American hostages, failed rescue, the October Surprise
KAL -- 007
Centennial of the Statue of Liberty -- giving sailors from HMS Ark Royal oil cans of Foster's Lager -- making friends for life :-D

More recent events already decribed
I guess these are just *some* of the moments that define my life so far.

 

[Maister]

People try to put us down
j-j-just because we g-g-get around...

I was conceived during the Kennedy administration and have always somehow felt spiritually linked to the 60's, but I was too young then to be part of the whole 'scene'. I have, however, identified closely with counterculture much of my adult life. For me, I guess the things that would define my generation would be the Iranian hostage situation, the bombing of the Beirut embassy (I was a jarhead at the time), Max Headroom, Star Wars, Punk and New Wave, advent of gothic and industrial music, Michael J. Fox yuppiedom (not me, but that would be my generation)

 

[Plannerbabs]

I remember....the hostage crisis, Jimmy Carter on TV looking very serious, the first shuttle launch, Maggie Thatcher--at one point, it seemed like the whole world was on strike. Burger Chef and the great happy meals they had, shopping at A & P, leg warmers, lying in the backseat of our old Saab listening to Sgt. Pepper, going on anti-nuclear marches and practicing duck and cover, the immense feeling of relief when the cold war was declared over, the Challenger, John Lennon's assassination, watching Lassie in the cafeteria of my elementary school on a rainy day, playing Star Wars on the playground....the advent of grunge and the eventual near-death of the indie music scene.

 

[mendelman]

What defined my cohort group (all people born between 1973-1986): Everything that occurred in the 1990's.

End of the Cold War/Soviet Union, tech boom, Clinton presidency, Grunge, Simpsons, widespread use of personal computers, maybe 9-11 & OKC bombing.

 

[boiker]

Also born in '78. I wasn't much of a pop culture nut when I was young...except for star wars, and the "V" mini-series.(anyone else remember that?)

-I remember (barely) going to disney world before epcot, universal studios, the resorts and everything.

-reading my "Weekly Reader"..specifically regarding the Mt. St. Helens eruption and recovery.

-watching the White Sox blow the AL champsionship in 1983 by going up 2-0 on the Orioles and then losing 3 straight!

-my first teleschope and watching Haley's Comet in '86

-thinking that the Pontiac Fiero was an "awesome and fast" car.

-recycling tons of glass bottles and aluminum cans in '89-'90 to buy my nintendo w/ light gun.

-massive drought that hit the midwest in the summer of 1988.

-internet explosion beginning in the early 90s. BBS RULED!

I tend to consider my generation defined by the period from '86-'96. Any sooner and it didn't matter much to me, any later and I was already through my impressionable years.

 

[Planderella]

Born in 72...don't remember much about the 70's except for:

• disco music
• watching Sesame Street, Electric Company and Mr. Rogers incessantly
• "I'd like to teach the world to sing...in perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world a COKE....." campaign
• and the Native American with the big tear running down his face because of pollution.

As a TRUE child of the 80's, I remember

• when rap music was fun
• watching human beat box competitions on street corners before school
• the Brat Pack and John Hughes movies
• witnessing the launch of MTV
• 1984 being a very good year for music
• fear of the Cold War and the Soviet Union and nuclear threats
• the new Proud to be Black/Afrocentric movement ('89-'91)
• ditto to what others have said

Why is this starting to sound like VH1's "I Love the 80's?"

 

[mendelman]

the new Proud to be Black/Afrocentric movement ('89-'91)

As exploited by NBC on the show A Different World |-) ;-)

 

[Plannerbabs]

Why is this starting to sound like VH1's "I Love the 80's?"

It does seem like there are a lot of us "Generation X" types here. Marketing types would love this info. B-)

 

[michaelskis]

It does seem like there are a lot of us "Generation X" types here. Marketing types would love this info. B-)

They have this info! Just look at the comercials, and thing from our child hood. Such as pack man, the theme song to night rider, and many others that would come to me if it were not a Monday.

 

[Seabishop]

I guess the Gen X experience is pretty uneventful so far since most of what characterizes us is marketing and pop culture. That's still a lot better than war and turmoil - as we see now, the 80s and 90s were peaceful times. I think the future will define us more than anything thusfar. We're still young, we've got decades ahead of us to change the world (or just be cynical).

...the new Proud to be Black/Afrocentric movement ('89-'91)...

I always thought it was sad that that movement in pop culture fizzled after a couple years (not that they're not lots of people now who are proud to be Black). Was it marketing overkill (A Different World etc.)? Was it the effects of Rodney King? NWA and the more positive stuff co-existed back then but gangsta rap won out big time, while Arrested Development and De La Soul got knocked off the airwaves.

Originally posted by Plannerbabs
It does seem like there are a lot of us "Generation X" types here. Marketing types would love this info.

Have you been to your local toy department lately. All of the toys we played with are back so we can buy them for our kids. My daughter likes the same My Little Pony stuff my wife played with. Instant nostalgia!

 

[Big Easy King]

Growing up in the 70's and 80's, I remember vividly the following:

- Saturday morning educational cartoon spots such as "I'm Just a Bill" and "Conjunction Junction" among others.
- the birth and explosion of rap music
- the Reagan shooting
- the space shuttle explosion
- Harlem Globetrotters games
- Ringling Bros.& Barnum & Bailey Circus
- U.S. problems with Iran and Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini
- 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans
- "Star Wars," "Empire Strikes Back," and "Return of the Jedi"

 

[jestes]

Well lets see what I can remember. I was born in 1967 so...

• The Watergate Hearings
• The Iran Hostage crisis
• Reagan saving the day
• the Berlin Wall Coming down
• The oil embargo and long gas lines
• Sesame Street and the Electric Company
• Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
• Hee Haw - I blame my Dad for this one
• 70's and 80's music
• Bush 1 and 2
• Clinton and all that baggage

Other misc stuff:
pet rocks
mood rings
albums, 8 tracks, cassettes, and CD's
pop rocks
Jaws
Star Wars
Adrian Barbeau
Charlies Angels - No, not the movie
Happy Days
Quincy
Parachute Pants
bell bottoms
straight leg jeans
Levis 501's with the button fly
the Izod craze
big hair
long hair


Reading the above, is it really any wonder that we/I are/am as twisted as we/I are/am?

 

[Tom R]

mmmmy generation

early - the assasination of JFK, RFK and MLK
and, of course the Vietnam war.

 

[Duke Of Dystopia]

I guess the Gen X experience is pretty uneventful so far since most of what characterizes us is marketing and pop culture......

I have to completly disagree on this one.

The rise of Post Modernism. Where everybodies point of view is of equal vallue, and all issues become so muddy there is no right or wrong, only excuses for piss poor behavior.

There is the death of curiosity in American culture in the 80's, got to worry about intractable problems like homeless people and the poor. (To hell with making a permanant presence in space, where spin-off technology has made a massive proffit than it ever cost.)

The fall of the Berlin Wall. (Dumbfounded me, I thought the russians never would have let it happen).

Constant bitterness, alienation, and disbelief in leadership of any kind.

Growth of conservativism based upon the rejection of the nihilism of the boomers before us. Soon to be followed now with a lack of any belief in elected leadership (I predict)

1st gulf war, (was a big deal to me as a front seat participant)

Chirstian scum actively trying to prevent scientific advances in medicine due to ignorance. (See the liberal version listed first above)


Seeing how Gen X is just reaching 30 to 35, thats a lot. The marketing gurus were going to figure out how to sell us crap sooner or later. At least we made them work for it.

.....and yes, I have a bias toward R & D related issues, it's the only way we as a nation will keep an edge. It should come before all else.

 

[otterpop]

I remember attending Earth Day celebrations in New Orleans, where the amount of pot burning must have contributed to global warming. I remember in first grade when Jack Kenedy was buried (they had a celebration at the cemetary next to my school and I vividly remember the 21 gun salute). I remember rock concerts - Jethro Tull, ZZ Top, Black Oak Arkansas and Yes.

I remember a lot up til about 1975, when I discovered Colombian pot, then I don't remember a lot until about 1982. :-D Just kidding.

 

[Tom R]

mmmmy generation

How forgetful of me, the arrival of the Beatles and the British invasion.

 

[SGB]

Well lets see what I can remember. I was born in 1967 so...

• Hee Haw - I blame my Dad for this one

I, too, was born in '67. I'll see your Hee Haw and raise (lower?) you a Lawrence Welk. (My parents were the age of most other's grandparents at the time.)

Other misc stuff:
pet rocks

My pet rock was named Charles Nelson Riley! B-)
Can you say: "Match Game?" I knew you could.

 

[Michele Zone]

I, too, was born in '67. I'll see your Hee Haw and raise (lower?) you a Lawrence Welk. (My parents were the age of most other's grandparents at the time.)

Ditto all of the above. (Except I was born in '65.) My dad is one year younger than my husband's grandmother who lives in the same town. My husband and I graduated high school together and our birthdays are less than 3 weeks apart. :-D

 

[DecaturHawk]

I, too, was born in '67. I'll see your Hee Haw and raise (lower?) you a Lawrence Welk. (My parents were the age of most other's grandparents at the time.)

Now there's something that relates to my childhood. The local PBS station here plays Lawrence Welk reruns on Saturday nights, and they are a hoot. I actually enjoy watching it, and those Lennon Sisters are just as pretty as I remember them. Now, if they could just do repeats of Mitch Miller on Sundays...

 

[Larry Felton Johnson]

Since I'm a 52 year old baby boomer, I sometimes believe we invented the concept of "our generation", that is until I read youthful works from virtually any previous generation.

But I'd have to say that those things I think of as defining my life in a cultural sense would be:

Early on I was a child in a "red neck" intown Atlanta neighborhood (Grant Park) so
my early music exposure was a mix of my father's Country Music, and the rock
and roll of the greasy haired teenagers who dismantled cars in the vacant lot across the street. I have these cloudy memories of them all looking like B movie juvenile delinquents.
Seeing Thunder Road at the Madison Theater in East Atlanta in the 1950s was one defining moment. I was too young to have much of an idea of what a moonshiner even was, but afterwards I bought my first 45 disc, Robert Mitchum singing the Thunder Road theme. (One interesting coincidence was when I met Phil Langdon, the New Urbanist writer and editor, a few years back, and found he also had an intense interest in that movie).

In the early sixties being first a paper boy, then a drug store delivery boy in the Grant Park and Cabbagetown area seemed like a really early sixties kid thing to be doing. Sort of Wally and the Beaver stuff.

By 1965 (I was 13-14 by then) I was exhibiting budding Bohemianism, and reading a confused mix of Tolkien, Kerouac, Ayn Rand, and a variety of sci-fi.

By 1968 I was in full hippie splendor, hung out at the 12th Gate Coffee House on Tenth Street, saw nearly every imaginable folk or rock performer or band over a several year period, dabbled in SDS. The high point was seeing Janis Joplin belt out "Piece O' My Heart" on three seperate occasions. I had also memorized the words to every song Dylan released through Blonde on Blonde.

Then came the 70s and a deathly silence fell upon the Earth ...

 

[boiker]

Now there's something that relates to my childhood. The local PBS station here plays Lawrence Welk reruns on Saturday nights, and they are a hoot. I actually enjoy watching it, and those Lennon Sisters are just as pretty as I remember them. Now, if they could just do repeats of Mitch Miller on Sundays...

Is PBS-47 still running Lawrence Welk? My Grandfather, a proud Pole, told me stories of him meeting Mr. Welk and Myron Floren, he was a great accordian player according to my grandfather. Every time I stayed at their farm in central illinois, I had to watch that show with them.

 

[Zoning Goddess]

Is PBS-47 still running Lawrence Welk? My Grandfather, a proud Pole, told me stories of him meeting Mr. Welk and Myron Floren, he was a great accordian player according to my grandfather. Every time I stayed at their farm in central illinois, I had to watch that show with them.

We had to watch Welk, and Mitch Miller, and of course every single darn western, and there were a LOT of them in the '60's, because Dad loved westerns and we only had ONE t.v., a console model in the living room (family rooms being a new concept back then).

 

[Budgie]

I was born on the spring equinox of the year Jimi Hendrix died. Since my high school years, I've felt like I should have been born 10 to 15 years earlier. I loathe most things associated with my "generation". Namely, anything associated with popular culture of the 1980's. Apart from Metallica, Iron Maiden, Van Halen (rather than Van Hagar) and the birth of Primus, Fishbone and Faith No More the 1980's were a complete waste.

Leg warmers, Molly Ringworm, Top Gun, Poison, Parachute Pants, feathered hair, Micheal J. Fox, Facts of Life, Break Dancing, Atari (which was sweat), Dungeons and Dragons, Madonna, Nike, I want my MTV, blah, blah, blah (bull****). I hate it all. It all sucks !!!!!!!!!!!! I never subscribed to the "ME 80's".

The older I get the more I appreciate the 1970's, which I only remember as an infant and pre-teen.

 

[DecaturHawk]

Is PBS-47 still running Lawrence Welk? My Grandfather, a proud Pole, told me stories of him meeting Mr. Welk and Myron Floren, he was a great accordian player according to my grandfather. Every time I stayed at their farm in central illinois, I had to watch that show with them.

We watch it on WILL out of Champaign, broadcast channel 11. Myron Floren was a great accordionist, probably the best known accordianist of all time. Growing up in heavily Czech/Bohemian Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we heard him every Sunday morning on the way home from church during the weekly "Czech Party" show, featuring the Boddicker School of Music All-Girl Accordion Band.

 

[Richmond Jake]

The older I get the more I appreciate the 1970's, which I only remember as an infant and pre-teen.

Oh dear child, how wrong you are (IMO). I came of age in the 1970's and it's a wonder I survived without serious emotional disfigurement (humm, come to think of it...). Just a horrible decade that I would just assume forget.