PROMISES MADE IS ONE THING, THEN WHAT

Make a promise, keep it, and you’ve got promises made. It’s that easy, and that hard.

It’s a badge of honor, but not a permanent one.

Screw up, break your word, and you sink back into the muck with the rest of us losers trying our best to remember what we said we’d do.

So keep it simple, pal.

Start with the promises made to you:

If you look around and listen, then you’ve heard the term ‘mid-century modern’ in collector’s circles.

You’ve also heard the term in your genealogical history if you are my age.

What’s more mid-century modern than a baby boomer? For icing on that cake, land in the middle of the mid-boomer lineup in mid-century.

That would be 1954, a good year until someone named Jonathan Pontell came up with Generation Jones, GenJones, Jones Generation.

Now we have a new tag to wear in a new category? Another hoop to jump through? More bullshit from a new demographic?

Sign me up.

 

Generation Jones: Promises Broken

I’m old enough to remember the first televised presidential debates and the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, but not Elvis, and not the Kitchen Debate between Vice President Nixon and Khrushchev.

My strongest memories of those historic events are that cartoons and the Three Stooges were better television.

Not long after the Beatles showed up, some goofy kids came to school in Beatle wigs and Beatle boots and the girls I liked noticed them.

Did I save my lawn mowing money for a wig and pointy-toed booties? Nooooo.

Should I have begged my Mom for a Beatle wig? Not when she had one we could try on.

Did I? Yes I did. Once.

Decades off marriage later, eons of matrimony, my wife and I went to a gender reversal Halloween Party.

Everyone agreed I made for an ugly woman. I blamed the wig.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, memory.

I’m old enough to remember things but not in the same context as older kids, maybe five years older, maybe less, or maybe it was just me.

Hence, Generation Jones

 

Sandwiched between the Baby Boomers and Generation X, Generation Jones encompasses those born between 1954 and 1965.

Sociologist Jonathan Pontell coined the term, aiming to capture the unique cultural and economic experiences of this cohort.

His idea was to bridge the gap between these two familiar generations. But who exactly are the Jonesers, and what makes them so distinct?

Let’s dive into the origins, cultural markers, and lasting impact of this fascinating generation.

 

The Jones On BoomerPdx

I started writing this blog, this boomerpdx, as an outlet for all of my generational angst? Noooo.

I started to create a movement? Nooooo.

Do I do it to whine and complain, to bitch and moan, to take a fake swing at important world topics?

Welllll . . .

 

While Baby Boomers are known for their idealism and rebellion, Generation Jones leans more towards pragmatism and realism.

Boomers grew up during the prosperous 1950s and 60s, a time of economic boom and social upheaval. They were the flower children, the civil rights activists, and the anti-war protesters.

In contrast, Generation Jones came of age in the 1970s and early 1980s, a period marked by economic downturns and political disillusionment.

 

I’ll admit I’m a known whiner and complainer, that is I used to be before I got married and had kids. We couldn’t all whine and complain at the same time so I took a break.

So far that break is going on thirty-eight years.

Before that I had an older brother and a younger brother who both got all the breaks and attention.

Who got the worst Christmas presents? Not them. Who got the worst birthday presents? Not them.

With their birthdays close to each other they always had a party; with a birthday close to Christmas I got the other thing, one or the other, but never both.

Birthday presents wrapped in Christmas paper, or Christmas presents wrapped in birthday paper.

As the father of two millennial sons I shared my heartache from back in the day about presents and they’ve kept up the wrapping paper tradition. Always on accident. Always an, ‘I can’t remember which is which.’

Turns out I’ve been living a Jones Generation life and didn’t know it.

 

Promises Kept 

Over the years I’ve shared quite a few things with these two.

None of it is based on their generational norms and expectations, I stick with the ideas of being fair and honest and telling the truth.

But, they’ve read up on baby boomers, heard all about ‘OK Boomer,’ and show little respect for their decrepit elderly parents’ generation.

And all I want to say is, “THANK YOU.”

Turns out I’m not the boomer they thought I was. Come on, boys, keep up.

 

PS:

If the idea is sandwiching a group of people between generations, you may have heard of The Sandwich Generation where an elderly parent fits in between parents and raising kids and the kids.

 

PSS:

Kids: Don’t expect us to do what you did with Grandpa.

Me: Nobody does what I did with Grandpa. Old sick people usually die when they get to his stage.

Kids: Are you a Super Boomer?

Me: Not anymore. Now I’m a Super Joneser.

Kids: What’s that?

Me: A much better fit.