Baby Busters

Shots were fired in Dallas
three years before I was born
one of the Baby Busters
middle child
misfit
too young for Studio 54
too old for a mosh pit.

Raised on a steady diet of
television and Tang.
Vietnam was a series of
black & white images
while drawing with crayons.
Watergate was background noise
while eating TV dinners.

Lying on our bellies
chins resting in our hands
we waited every Sunday
for Tinkerbell to let us in
to Disney’s wonderful world.

We carried The Force
in our back pockets and
lived the Wonder Years
on a white Huffy with the banana seat-
nobody had a helmet
everybody had a latchkey.

After school
we watched the Brady Bunch
dreamed of Walton's Mountain
and grieved for the perfect family.

We never wore saddle shoes
or poodle skirts
nose rings or bellybutton things.
Individuality was our conformity. 

We were there when Disco
drew its last breath
and gave birth to 
the MTV Generation.

We saw the Berlin Wall
crumble like Jericho
and watched the Gulf War
from a comfortable chair
with a bag of microwave popcorn.

We remember when
OJ Simpson was a hero
Michael Jackson was cool
and Madonna was hot.

We learned that despite superstition
and social panic
one millennium ends seamlessly
where another begins.

We wish we could believe
that love is all you need.

We thought we buried bigotry
in a time capsule
with a can of Aquanet and a
Band-Aid cassette
but someone dug it up
to build another tower.

A graduate degree is
no longer our guarantee.
Over-educated and under-employed
Baby Boomers clog
the arteries of upward mobility.
Busters work two McJobs
and still can’t pay the rent.

The Me Generation vs. the
Why Me? Generation
more likely to see a UFO
than a social security check.

Paralyzed by our inheritance:
racial strife, homelessness
fractured families and federal deficits.
Caught between a thong
and Depends.

_______________________________________________

I read recently that there is a new Baby Buster generation thanks to Covid. So I dug this poem out of mothballs. I wrote it about fifteen years ago. 

The craziest thing happened to me on July 4th. While I was watching the fireworks, I was bit by some insect. I didn't even notice the bite at the time. The bite became infected. I was given antibiotics, but they did not work. I nearly became septic. I had to have two surgeries to drain the infection, and spent six days in the hospital. All from a bug bite!