Don't trust any one under fifty.

I think that this post is only for those of us in our fifties and sixties. Everybody else, no fair peeking. Move ahead very slowly. Keep your eyes on the table where we can see them.

I have a question and I think it is legitimate. What the fuck happened? It was our turn to rule and everything is now so very royally screwed up. We have done an awful job raising our children and are now in many cases raising their children. Our divorce rate is awful, our antidepressant use is off the charts. Children are obese and don't play outside any more.

The economy is in tatters. The environment is afoul. Neither side will speak to each other, encamped on distant banks. It is like a civil war battle, two sides so far apart that they can hardly see each other, but sending vollies across the low stone walls and picking each other off in the distance. We are at that stage of the battle where there is no hope for compromise, each side only concerned about inflicting maximum damage and not yet enough blood spilled to be talking treaty.

Bill Clinton and Bush I were both able to create and move through bipartisan legislation but now the middle ground is a heavily mined D.M.Z. and not safe for habitation. Our president just did a Harry Anslinger and deep-sixed any hopes of ending the green prohibition, once again out republicanning the republicans and signing on to the notion that marijuana is in the same class as heroin and had no legitimate medical usage. Some progressive.

Cokie Roberts announced today that she will give First Lady Betty Ford's eulogy and it will be about comity, about when the two political parties actually talked and got things accomplished together. Her father was Democratic House Majority leader Hale Boggs, who achieved success working with Republican House Minority leader Gerald Ford, our future president. If they could do it then, why can we not do it now? Why are both sides so consumed with hatred and their solely being on the right side of the argument? Why is our generation of leaders such a colossal fail?

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I never thought I would live to see 54, an event now three months and change into the future. I believe that I have now passed that tipping point into the old side of the age ledger. Don't even have to look at the mirror as if I needed final corroboration. I was sitting at Lefty's, the chicago hot dog and italian beef spot on Goldfinch yesterday and after a quick look around realized that I was the oldest cat in the joint. Maybe one of the few not heavily pierced or sporting ink. The short guy across from us in the Cinelli cap had his brow tatted up and his cheeks. He had a rather bovine girl in tow with a dead stare on her face.

My friends are retiring. Their kids have mostly all moved out. We are looked at like antiquated anachronisms by the young tikes. We don't get Jason Mraz. Or Emo. They largely don't get us.

A realtor guy I know came over the other day and was telling me why the eighties were the greatest era ever in music. Now I wouldn't know Spandau Ballet from Balanchine but I think I would have to differ. The sixties were the most cataclysmic event since the thirties and nothing comes close, at least musically. Although my older buddies were voting 50's at breakfast. Bill Haley or the Beatles, not a very hard decision.

When I look at certain people in their sixties and seventies and do a quick subtraction, now where were they 50 years ago and what kind of fun were they exactly having? Redact The heavens were magically aligned. We took the synaptic leap. The door shut. Can we legitimately trust anyone under thirty?

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The Republicans of course have been pushing for changes in Medicare and Social Security that will keep benefits for everybody over the age of 55. Don't worry they will only screw guys and gals right up against it like me. Punish the tail end baby boomers, they had way too much fun. And we did, more fun than they could ever envision.

Cheers!