What a great article, Ben. I lived through all of it, and was even watching TV in my office when the second plane hit the other tower. That's when everyone realized it wasn't an aviation accident, but a terror attack. The next few hours were a blur. I remember the video of people jumping from the WTC to their certain death. They did so to avoid the fires. Patriotism was at an all time high, and people applauded the first attacks on Kabul. I applauded, and, like millions of Americans, wanted those 'rag heads' dead. You are lucky you were just a wee lad when this horror was perpetrated upon our nation.
I certainly am. I had no idea what a traumatic time it was for the nation until years later. Even as an adult, it's still slowly dawning on me just what a world-changing event it was. Where were you living at the time? You weren't in the city, were you?
To put 9/11 in a bit of perspective for you: In 1993, we lived through the first bombing of the World Trade Center. Not nearly as devastating, but still. That was followed by the bombing in Oklahoma City (domestic terrorism). Interspersed with Ruby Ridge (1992) and David Koresh (1993).
In other words, 9/11 followed a decade of intense violence. It felt like our world was falling apart.
For those of us in Generation Jones - the sandwich generation between Boomers and X - we’d also come of age during the awful violence of the 1960s and early 1970s. What’s nostalgically seen as the Age of Aquarius with love and peace and Woodstock, was in reality a decade and a half of constant violence. Kent State… Yes 100% yes, there was good cause for much of the violence. Civil rights movement probably wouldn’t have succeeded without violence, sad to say. And the war in Vietnam wouldn’t have ended with simply peaceful protests. But when you’re 15, it’s scary as hell. A lot of us didn’t think the US would survive. In the 1970s. When I’m guessing your parents were born.
Every single generation, yours, mine, my grandparents’, has its own unique set of memories to contend with. Good and bad.
I get upset beyond measure with Gen-Jones remembering just the love and peace and funky shirts and Woodstock, and forgetting everything else.
Every generation has its unique memory set. We tend to choose to hold onto the impossibly good. Only the defining and national bad moments are seared into our brains. JFK’s assassination. Kent State. Jonestown. Watergate. And 9/11.
Well said, Denise. Thanks so much for the comment. We definitely each face our own challenges. And my parents actually had me at a later age. My dad was born in 52 and my mom in 55. So they've witnessed their fair bit of world-changing, too. But hardly anything compared to my 97 year old grandpa! I can hardly imagine what it would be to like to live so many seismic paradigm shifts and still remain sharp enough to recall each.
Generation Jones is a term I'd never actually heard before. It's always interesting to me how much contention there is around what generations are called what. Seems like there's 10 different names for the generations that come after millennials even.
Thank you, Ben! I sincerely appreciate your perspective.
I write about German resistance during the Shoah. In the first three chapters, I put the lives of those students’ parents in context. What it meant to survive both hyperinflation (they stopped defining inflation rate when it was in the billion percent range YOY) followed by the Great Depression five years later.
History teaches us context, which breaks down generational barriers, both real and imagined.
Oh, and Boomers originally referred to the sheer and overwhelming number of children born between 1945 and 1966, when soldiers returning from WW2 finally stopped having children. Gen-Jones is a term coined by Jonathan Pontell. We came of age in the computer revolution and are quite tech savvy, despite now being officially old. 😛 Unlike older Boomers, we still want the newest gadgets and computers. And we love to travel and see the world.
I actually think Gen-Jones and Gen-Z have more in common than other “generations.”
What a great article, Ben. I lived through all of it, and was even watching TV in my office when the second plane hit the other tower. That's when everyone realized it wasn't an aviation accident, but a terror attack. The next few hours were a blur. I remember the video of people jumping from the WTC to their certain death. They did so to avoid the fires. Patriotism was at an all time high, and people applauded the first attacks on Kabul. I applauded, and, like millions of Americans, wanted those 'rag heads' dead. You are lucky you were just a wee lad when this horror was perpetrated upon our nation.
I certainly am. I had no idea what a traumatic time it was for the nation until years later. Even as an adult, it's still slowly dawning on me just what a world-changing event it was. Where were you living at the time? You weren't in the city, were you?
To put 9/11 in a bit of perspective for you: In 1993, we lived through the first bombing of the World Trade Center. Not nearly as devastating, but still. That was followed by the bombing in Oklahoma City (domestic terrorism). Interspersed with Ruby Ridge (1992) and David Koresh (1993).
In other words, 9/11 followed a decade of intense violence. It felt like our world was falling apart.
For those of us in Generation Jones - the sandwich generation between Boomers and X - we’d also come of age during the awful violence of the 1960s and early 1970s. What’s nostalgically seen as the Age of Aquarius with love and peace and Woodstock, was in reality a decade and a half of constant violence. Kent State… Yes 100% yes, there was good cause for much of the violence. Civil rights movement probably wouldn’t have succeeded without violence, sad to say. And the war in Vietnam wouldn’t have ended with simply peaceful protests. But when you’re 15, it’s scary as hell. A lot of us didn’t think the US would survive. In the 1970s. When I’m guessing your parents were born.
Every single generation, yours, mine, my grandparents’, has its own unique set of memories to contend with. Good and bad.
I get upset beyond measure with Gen-Jones remembering just the love and peace and funky shirts and Woodstock, and forgetting everything else.
Every generation has its unique memory set. We tend to choose to hold onto the impossibly good. Only the defining and national bad moments are seared into our brains. JFK’s assassination. Kent State. Jonestown. Watergate. And 9/11.
Well said, Denise. Thanks so much for the comment. We definitely each face our own challenges. And my parents actually had me at a later age. My dad was born in 52 and my mom in 55. So they've witnessed their fair bit of world-changing, too. But hardly anything compared to my 97 year old grandpa! I can hardly imagine what it would be to like to live so many seismic paradigm shifts and still remain sharp enough to recall each.
Generation Jones is a term I'd never actually heard before. It's always interesting to me how much contention there is around what generations are called what. Seems like there's 10 different names for the generations that come after millennials even.
Thank you, Ben! I sincerely appreciate your perspective.
I write about German resistance during the Shoah. In the first three chapters, I put the lives of those students’ parents in context. What it meant to survive both hyperinflation (they stopped defining inflation rate when it was in the billion percent range YOY) followed by the Great Depression five years later.
History teaches us context, which breaks down generational barriers, both real and imagined.
Oh, and Boomers originally referred to the sheer and overwhelming number of children born between 1945 and 1966, when soldiers returning from WW2 finally stopped having children. Gen-Jones is a term coined by Jonathan Pontell. We came of age in the computer revolution and are quite tech savvy, despite now being officially old. 😛 Unlike older Boomers, we still want the newest gadgets and computers. And we love to travel and see the world.
I actually think Gen-Jones and Gen-Z have more in common than other “generations.”