The Next-Greatest Generation
2020: The Worst Year Ever. Ask anyone.
“Personal freedoms” are being curtailed. We’re being asked to wear face masks, to limit our activities and keep our distance if we do go out in public. And now, we’re being asked to refrain from travel and large family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Thank God!
Admit it – you can’t stand large portions of your family. Uncle Charlie? The guy who was so plastered at your wedding reception that he bounced off pillars and fell into the cake? Won’t have to tolerate him this year! Your brother-in-law’s father, who during Thanksgiving dinner tells racist jokes at the expense of whatever ethnic group is out of favor with him at the moment? This year you won’t have to stick your fingers in your ears and go “la, la, la” until he finishes. And best of all: No need for pumpkin spice!
Thank God!
In December, no search for the perfect Christmas tree. No standing in line for a chance to get the latest must-have toy for a toddler. No watching of insipid Christmas TV specials left over from the sixties. This year, binge watch “The Mandalorian” and take a shot of Jack Daniel’s every time Baby Yoda coos! And best of all: No apple-cinnamon air freshener!
Be thankful!
Be thankful that you aren’t living through World War II rationing. Because the current generation of Americans is populated, by in large, by wimps.
That’s right: wimps! We’re being asked – not forced, for the most part – to make small sacrifices for the common good. Sacrifice just one family holiday season until – with luck – a vaccine against COVID-19 can be given to the general population early in 2021. A year – maybe 18 months – of limited sacrifice.
Be thankful it’s not five years.
From May 1942 until the end of World War II in 1945, Americans endured rationing of automobiles, tires, fuel oil, coal, firewood, nylon, silk, shoes and more. The purchase of gasoline was limited to 3 gallons per week. “No unnecessary trips!” was the watchword. Americans needed ration cards and stamps to purchase household goods, including sugar, coffee, meat, dairy products, lard and cooking oils. In some parts of the country, rationing of sugar did not end until 1947. To my knowledge, no one took to the streets chanting or toted automatic weapons to the governor’s office to protest these curtailments of “personal freedoms.”
I know what you’re thinking: “But at least they could see each other during WWII!” True. Except for the almost 292,000 Americans who died in combat and the nearly 114,000 more lost in non-theater deaths. That’s sacrifice.
Think about it: How important is it to have pumpkin pie with Grandma and Grandpa this Thanksgiving? To give Mom and Dad a hug at Christmas? Important enough to risk having to attend their funerals in January?
It’s been said before, but is worth repeating: Your safety and the safety of others are not mutually exclusive propositions. Sacrifice for the common good used to be a hallmark of Americans.
Stiff upper lip, my fellow Americans!
We have a chance to become “The Next-Greatest Generation.”