Blessed Beatle Generation

Looking at the old pictures and the history of Park City, it is evident that the current overwhelming growth trends started in the early 60’s with the Baby Boomers.  The town was a down-and-out, ghost town with only the most resolute miners hanging on in the late 50’s, when people started coming up with the new idea of skiing as the future.  With a Gondola loan from the JFK Administration in ’63 and some new blood in town, the concept took off.  The Boomers moved in and set the tone while becoming vertical venture capitalist, untracked entrepreneurs, and promiscuous powder hounds.  They bought up Main Steet for back taxes and built a couple of funky friendly little ski resorts.  The rest is history.

Common folklore asserts that the Beatles rose to popularity, especially in America, after the JFK assassination threw the country into an inescapable funk.  The lads from Liverpool sparked the country with their boots and bangs and their irreverent energy and mirth.  Their musical talent and artistic creativity propelled them to such success that they could play any new chord in any key and get away with it.  For the next 8 years they put up Gretzky type record sales figures as their imagination and adventure evolved and progressed, as most good artists and rule breakers should.  They reinvented pop music and set the tone for the sixties’ music, culture, politics and social norms.  They were in the right place at the right time.  We were ready.

I contend that the Beatles also emerged from a post war rebuilt England, where most of the generation before them were dead or suffering silently, as is the English way.  The Fab Four came out of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields to storm the bars of Liverpool and Hamburg.  They were emboldened to do something different than the usual BBC blather and were inspired by Elvis and Dylan, Chuck Berry and The Big Bopper.  With good management, production and timing, they took it to the next level.  It was as much as an evolution as a revolution. Mix in peace and love, liberated women and the sexual revolution, 8 track recording with movies, videos and TV shows.  Add to that the Mozartian musicality of Paul and the Andy Warhol artistry of John with George learning the trade by osmosis and Ringo keeping the perfect beat, they were unstoppable.  A phenomenon, waiting to happen.  Musically the Beatles affected the generation, from Sinatra to Elvis, Chuck Berry to Buddy Holly, Hendrix to Clapton, Dylan to The Dead, Joni to Janice, The Beach Boys to Bruce, The Doors to the Stones , The Who to Led Zeppelin,  CSNY and Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles to Jackson Brown, Segar to Cougar-Melencamp, The Police to Pearl Jam, REM to U2, The Talking Heads to Nirvana, Taylor Swift to Beyoncé, Eminem to JZ.  And the beat goes on. 

And so it is with our generation, the blessed Boomers they call us, the Hippies, Yuppies and the ‘Me Generation.’  Hached from thrifty parents that survived the Great Depression and World War II and thrust into the post war prosperity. we maintained that frugality but forgot the war amongst Hogan’s Heros reruns.  So we went straight to peace, love, sex, drugs, rock and roll and new math.  Whether the Beatles led this, or followed as the poster child of the generation, it makes no difference.  The times were a ‘changing. 

Nationally, Boomers ended McCarthyism, The Cold War, Vietnam, and the draft, settling into the uneasy Industrial Military Complex, preferring to fight our battles, bolster our economy and dissipate international friction in Afghanistan, Isreal, Iran and Iraq.   We shut down Nukes, for better for worse, after Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima and started burning stuff like the air, sky and water were free.  We sent a man to the moon and the Space Station and a probe out of the the solar system to look bat at our blue dot.  We cured Polio and quelled Aids but found a flu that could not be beat.  We went after solar and wind energy but faced a head wind of resistance from an overcast climate.  We drained the rivers and pumped the aquifers dry thinking we could desalinate the ocean without the nukes we needed.  We invented digital music and dumped records and tapes, 8-tracks and disks, storage and streaming and now just listen to music from the Cloud.  We perfected animation so that movies could be made without actors or writers.  Mothers went to work but eventually came back home to their kids with telework and flex time, proving once and for all that they can do it all even if they don’t get paid the same.

Boomers dumped Civil Rights Lyndon Johnson and crooked Richard Nixon and settled for Gerald Ford who would ‘Whip Inflation Now (WIN) or Jimmy Cardigan, who told us to slow down and turn the heat off.  Regan sold us on Bad Government and Trickle-Down Recessions while daddy Bush stopped short of Sadam in Baghdad, leaving it to Junior to clean up his mess, and that of 911.  The sins of the father were laid upon the son.  Clinton balanced the last budget at the cost of the Middle Class and Obama started Universal Health Care at the cost of his political capital.  Trump gave his buddies a tax break, and will do it again, while Joe Biden saved the Climate and our Infrastructure.  With all our phones, computers, Ai and fake information, we are the best and the worst generation, knowing what was really going on and choosing to ignore it. 

Athletically, Boomers boast Muhamad Ali, floating like a butterfly stinging like a be.  Wayne Gretzky was the Great One and Michael Jorden was the Other Great One.  Baseball had Mantel and Mays, Football had LT and Montana, skiing had Killy and Michaela.  Snowboarding had Sean White and Chloe Kim while back country skiing had Coombs and Schmidt, Plake and Kim Reichhelm.  Biking had Armstrong, LeMonde and Ned-the-Lung while the Olympics had Phelps and Bolt.  Climbing had Alex Honnold and Lynn Hill, and chess had Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky.  Soccer had Pele and Mia Hamm while Tennis had Laver and Borg, Serena and Martina. Surfing had tow-in Laird, and shark-girl Bethany Hamilton.  Cars had Jackie Stewart and Richard Petty, Mario Andretti and Danica Patrick.  Pickleball meanwhile had Old Uncle Joe and Karen the Trophy Housewife.

Meanwhile back in Park City Boomers were weathering local recessions and enjoying personal prosperity, buying low and selling high.  We were born in the black and white 50’s, grew up in the psychedelic, free-sex 60’s, partied in the 70’s, skied big pow in the 80’s, built houses in the 90’s, married in the 00’s, raised kids in the 10’s and retired in the 20’s. What a life.  We became Olympian and gourmet customer oriented, invented fat skis and fast chair lifts, snowboards, snow making and snow grooming, mountain bikes, E-Bikes, and E-Cars, Erogenous zones and flying drones, hip and knee replacements, vaccinations and extended vacations, just in time, as needed.  Coffee went from a nickel a cup to 5 dollars, and ski passes went from 5 dollars a day to 300.

Park City and SLC became real cities as people followed that Post-Covid, Tele-Working, quality-of-life thing.  Development ran rampant and roughshod while hostile, strongarmed corporate takeovers were de rigueur as we became Olympian and customer oriented.   Homes became commodities to buy and sell.  We became generationally rich on home equity but poor on the life-critical consumables, like air, water and shelter for all.  Living wages became a thing of the past while affordable housing became unobtainable.  Ganja was legalized, validated and vindicated and we became the new gummy-bear generation along with micro-doses, micro-breweries, designer tequilas and single malt scotch.  We all picked our poison.   But we had a good run.  We had the best; they can have the rest.

Now we stand at the precipice of another generational grand funk where the middle class has been battered, and the country is divided, by a team of Oligarchs that would make Putin blush.  We strive for sustainability but continue growing and consuming.  We brace ourselves for a future with pessimistic reticence to endure, instead of optimistic resolve with solutions.  You say you want a revolution?  Perhaps it starts with the music.  All we are saying is ‘give peace a chance’.  I trust this generation will prevail like we did.  All you need is love.    Hopefully they will find the balance that eluded us.  In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.