Don't You Dare Call Us Senior Citizens

We are the aging baby-boomers, and those of us that the war, psychedelic drugs, cigarettes, or muscle cars did not kill are proud, defiant, egotistical, ornery, vain, and tough as nails. In ten years, 42.3 million of us were born to share the most incredible, troubling, dazzling, terrifying time imaginable--between the discovery of the birth control pill and AIDS.

Our generation had Jimi Hendricks, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and so many other greats never to be touched again. We actually watched the live TV broadcast of Walter Cronkite tell America that JFK was dead, and we heard the radio announce that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been murdered. We cried when we watched the news broadcast the shootings at Kent State, and we applauded the resignation of Tricky Dick.

Some of our best friends were paralyzed in Nam; and too many of our husbands and lovers died there. We had cars named Mustang, Camero, GTO, Chevelle, Malibu, GSX, Hemi-Cuda; and we drove their 429 and 427 engines until the hoods lifted. We tried cheater slicks, and some of the careless died because of them.

We had passion so intense that you could smell it, see it, and cut it with a knife. It pounded within us; it was never to be felt with that intensity again. When we loved, we devoured each other. We would crawl through broken glass to get at each other. The senseless war haunted us; we never knew when it would rip that passion apart.

Now when we pass a full-length mirror and see a plump man or woman with white hair across the way, we are astonished to discover that person could be us! If you ever call one of us a senior citizen, we might deck you. We know we are not as we once were, but we are unique-- our own generation. We are beautiful, proud, and in our dreams, we are still 22. We are the greatest generation that ever lived; we are the aging baby boomers.