Born between 1930-1946

• You are the smallest group of children, born since the early 1900s.

• You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.

• You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.

• You saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans.

• You saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available.

• You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the “milk box” on the porch.

• You are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of grieving neighbors whose sons died in the War.

• You saw the ‘boys’ home from the war, build their little houses.

• You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, you imagined what you heard on the radio.

• With no TV until the 50’s, you spent your childhood “playing outside”.

• There was no little league. There was no city playground for kids.

• The lack of television in your early years meant, that you had little real understanding of what the world was like.

• On Saturday afternoons, the movies gave you newsreels sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.

• Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines) and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy).

• Computers were called calculators; they were hand cranked.

• Typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.

• INTERNET’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that did not exist.

• Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on your radio in the evening .As you grew up, the country was exploding with growth.

• The public schools taught classes in history, geography, and civics.

• Girls could take typing and home economics.

• Boys could take wood, metal, electrical, and auto shops to learn a trade, as well as drafting.

• The schools taught mathematics, not how to use a calculator. They also taught you how to write a check, balance your check book, and maintain a pass book savings account.

• You learned both printing and cursive writing.

• Most high schools had a R.O.T.C. program that could prepare you for military service.

• It was not a disgrace to join military directly out of high school rather than going to college, and this was also a good way to get the government to pay for your college via the G.I. Bill.

• The Government gave returning Veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow. Loans fanned a housing boom. Pent up demand coupled with new instalment payment plans opened many factories for work.

• New highways would bring jobs and mobility.

• The Veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics.

• The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.

• Your parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.

• You weren’t neglected, but you weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus. They were glad you played by yourselves until the street lights came on. They were busy discovering the post war world.

• You entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where you were welcomed, enjoyed yourselves and felt secure in your future though depression poverty was deeply remembered.

• Polio was still a crippler.

• You came of age in the 50s and 60s.You are the last generation to experience a very brief interlude when there were no threats to our homeland. The Second World War was over in the summer of ’45 and the Berlin Blockade started in June of ’48, the Soviet Union developed their own atomic bomb in Aug. of ‘49 and started the cold war.

• We built bomb shelters in our back yards and learned to hide under our desks in case of a nuclear attack.

• In June 1950, the U. S. entered the Korean War and there has been conflict, terrorism, global warming, and perpetual economic insecurity for the next 70 years.

• Only your generation can remember both a time of great war, and a short, three-year time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty. You grew up at the best possible time, the only time when the world was actually getting better...

• The 50s and 60s also gave birth to rock and roll, the musical art form that is still alive and well today.

• You are “The Last Ones.” More than 99% of you are either retired or deceased, and you feel privileged to have “lived in the best of times!”