Seasons In The Sun - Terry Jacks 1974

The effect of LSD on developing brains

In my Adult Development class, there has been some talk, "... that “older” people are not as sharp as younger people. In other words, casual observations suggest that a person’s intelligence changes for the worse with age."

I understand that we are discussing biological changes within the brain, however I believe there are several mitigators that may have had, or may continue to have, a significant bearing on the outcome of all such research studies.

Historically, those born in the years leading up to the Great Depression and on through until the start of World War II, may have been influenced by the Depression and the huge shift in thinking. Parents of these children may have had a hard time providing for the family so most of the children might have had to quit school and go to work, as every dime could be the difference between going to bed hungry or satisfied. Therefore, children born between roughly 1920 to 1938 were encouraged to work. Only the select few were given the opportunity to go to high school, let alone college.

After WWII, the country was in high spirits and the children of these parents, those born between, say, 1938 to 1950, were then encouraged to "get an education" and "make something of yourself".

Hahaha. But then Rock and Roll came into the picture and "corrupted our youth". (Just kidding. But our parents thought for sure it was the truth.)

The Babyboomers, those born between 1946 and 1966 sort of just threw the rule book away. In 1967, the oldest of those babyboomers was 21. In the early sixties, the popular youth culture became a massive counter-culture. They originated the term "generation gap" and sang songs "t-t-talking 'bout my g-generation".

In 1967, a psychologist named Timothy Leary urged this huge youth counterculture to "Turn on, Tune in, and Drop out." Yes. He advocated the use of LSD and other "psychedelic" drugs to "...go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment... Become sensitive to the... various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. [sic]" (Flashback, Leary, 1983)

So mostly the babyboomers took drugs and danced to the "devil's music". They marched for civil rights or women's lib, or they joined in a thousand protests of the war in Viet Nam. They had a lot of sit-ins, and one "Human-Be-in". And of course there was Woodstock.

So, the adults in the study may have dropped out of school for purely economic reasons (as my parents and some of their friends did) or they were just too stoned to go to school, or to pay attention if they did go to school, like my older brother and his friends. Maybe all those drugs affected their brains. (Naw... Do you think???)

Three Classes, One Blog

As most of you know, I am attempting to finish my Bachelors degree in Social Work. I want to work with the elderly in nursing homes and assisted-living residences,etc. Most of you also know that I am crazy... I mean interested in the aging Baby Boomers. So, I'm going to ask you to bear with me.

I want this blog to address the stories of our aging society, whether they be middle-aged or senior citizens. I also want this blog to serve two purposes. Three, if I can manage.

I am taking this class in Digital Storytelling and I am taking a Creative Arts Therapy class as well. So, what I'm going to try to do is have my target sector write the blog for me. We may use artwork, and/or photos, and memories from and by our senior citizens to tell a story, and, at the same time, I will be helping them to use this forum as a therapeutic springboard into the next stage of their lives.

Two birds, one stone, sort of thing... I'm not trying to be lazy here, but I'm trying to "work smarter, not harder". Maybe it's in my biological makeup to over-complicate things. I can just hear my friend Lenny saying, "Why does everything have to mean something?" lol.

Well, to me it does. What I do here has to matter.

I'm just not sure how I can go about this exactly: I want to make a great blog and a useful therapy. So, as I said earlier, I need you to bear with me while I figure out how this thing is going to work.

I'm also taking an Adult Development course. Hmmm....

My personal National Day of Mourning

September 11th is my own Personal National Day of Mourning..... There is hardly an American alive, born before the turn of the century, who cannot tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard of the unthinkable horror. Someone, some country, some group had hijacked airplanes and flown them into two of the tallest towers of the World Trade Center, into the Pentagon building, into a field in Pennsylvania..... Ask anyone and they will tell you: “I was in school out in Colorado. I had just woke up and turned on the news.” “I was in my office, just downtown. I looked out the window and saw smoke.”..... Did they mourn at the time? Not yet. They were horrified. They were confused. They were stunned. Mourning came in the days following, as did solidarity, and American pride. Mourning gave way to morning, and now it's ten years later. The time, some say, for mourning is over. It's a new day. A new memorial stands in the place of the twin towers. People say it's beautiful..... So,what am I going on about? Why am I still grief-stricken? Why is today my own Personal, National Day of Mourning? What I grieve for, every year; what I will always grieve for, are the stories we will not hear, from the people whose lives were cut short, whose moments were frozen, who cannot “remember” the day, the hours, and the moments leading up to their end of days:.... There was Maria, who was up at 6:00 to get ready for work. She showered, brushed her teeth, and read the newspaper before facing the long commute into the city. Some asshole cut her off in traffic and as she hit the brakes to avoid a collision, she spilled coffee down the front of her skirt. “Great!” she thought. Well, the skirt was grey, so maybe it wouldn't stain..... There was Mark, who was having an affair with a woman in the office. He was smiling to himself as he read the email from his boss, recognizing his hard work on last week's project. He was due for a review soon, and he might ask for a raise..... There was Walter, who had had another fight with his wife last night, and then snapped at the girl at the copy machine. The phone rang as soon as he sat down. “What now?”.... There was Linda who had been up all night with a puking three-year old and had had to call to arrange an alternate babysitter because the daycare certainly wouldn't take a sick kid. She felt a headache coming on, and reached into her desk drawer for the bottle of Tylenol..... There was Avery who was, by God, a man now, a proud, educated man, who was reduced to working mornings, running errands and hefting packages like his slave ancestors, because his mother was ill and demanded he bring in some money for rent, even though going to college afternoons was a full-time job..... Perhaps these people, these ordinary schmucks like you and I, perhaps they're all in heaven or purgatory, or wherever you go when you die. Perhaps they speak to each other, tell where they were and what they were doing in the moments before the world dissolved into burning, screaming chaos..... I mourn for these people, whom I have never met. I mourn for their families. I am outraged by the rhetoric and diatribe surrounding 9/11. Conspiricists, passivists, militants, peace-mongers and politicians, all trying to make the suffering invisible or, at the very least, all about Them..... The United States of America has decided not to declare 9/11 a National Day of Mourning. They don't want to make this day into just another paid holiday, just another 3-day weekend, another excuse for families to get together to barbeque. Especially since they just celebrated Labor Day. Instead, they say, let this be a day to volunteer in our community, to “reflect”, to pause for a moment of silence at four specific times in the day, or just once, at noon, because who can keep the times all straight?.... As for me, however, I will not work on September 11th. I will take a “personal day”. I will cancel all plans, refuse to take calls. I will not let the day go by without marking, without remembering, where these people were when America was attacked and my naivety was shattered into a million tiny pieces..I had never dreamed that there could be a world that dark, a mind that evil, a soul that black, as to think up such a heinous act of slaughter..... Where were you on September 11th? Where are you today? I will be at home. Right here. Remembering.

Technology as tool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38&feature=player_embedded ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ When I watched the above video "A Day Made of Glass", I was struck by the technology of change. Baby Boomers have seen huge advances in technology within their lifetimes, but the technology, or tool, that they have used the most, is their unflinching ability to change and to adapt to the changes. If that makes sense.

Aging of the Baby Boomers

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life." We've heard those words a thousand times. If we're honest, we've even believed them once or twice. But what if the world suddenly stood on its head, and the people you have loved the most start telling you, "Today is one of the last days of your life."

In 1925 T.S. Eliot wrote:

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

But T.S. Eliot was born before the Baby Boomer Generation. You may have heard of the Baby Boomers: they are a demographic of people born between the years of 1946 and 1964.  There are some 82,826,479 Baby Boomers in the world today, and just by their sheer numbers, they have taken the world by storm.  They have changed the face of every social strata through which they have passed: there was no such thing as a generation gap, sexual revolution, women's lib or civil rights before the Boomers came along.

That's almost 83 BILLION people, and guess what? The first of them just turned 65 last year.


26 years after TS Eliot, a man named Dylan Thomas wrote:



     Do not go gentle into that good night,
     Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
     Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Those are the words the Baby Boomers will live by.


This proud and fiercely independent generation are not known for sitting quietly and not causing a fuss. They will refuse to be banished into nursing homes and assisted living communities, never to be heard from again.

.They WILL be heard. It is my goal to record their voices, their stories, their Rage.

Because one day, we too will be old. How do you want to be remembered?