Modern Times
This is, of course, our very own cycle. It is really a little early to give it a permanent name or precise timing, but I am leaning towards a title that reflects the growth of both the political and technical strength of the United States since World War II. Let’s call it the Power Up Cycle* and keep in mind that the phrase “Up Cycle” carries an ominous implied warning for the next cycle. This cycle, however, begins with the birth (approximately 1946) of our version of the prophet generation, the Baby Boomers, and is continuing to this very day.
As the Boomers approached adulthood, the 1960s and 1970s became our spiritual event and even now the young hero generation (Millinials now in their 30s) have supposedly gathered the strength of character, from their exposure to the world of adult nomads (GenXers now in their 50s) and prophets (boomers now retiring) to take on the coming secular event due to unfold in the 2020s. The new Artists (GenZ) are now in college and are steeped in the digital culture that has blossomed in the last couple of decades even though they had to weather the Covid epidemic en route. I have a curious sense of attachment to these youngsters as they are one cycle removed from my own generational type. It remains to be seen how they will square up to meet the coming changes. I suspect they will go along and do what is necessary.
*Neil Howe refers to this cycle as the Millennial Cycle. That seems a bit non-committal given the obvious trends that are becoming evident as we approach the brunt of the 4th Turning.
Generation R – Our Family
Generation R (1942-1970) – This is our Generation and is the culmination of all of the previous generations in our Family Tree. At this point in time, the only family left in the tree is our own. We were actually born in 1942, the middle of World War II and a bit before the “official” end of the last cycle but we have spent most of our lives in this cycle. An interesting fact: we were both residing in our mother’s womb when Pearl Harbor occurred.
Apart from a few years in the early 1950s when my family lived in Oregon, both my spouse and I spent our childhood in the Los Angeles area. We met in High School and stayed in contact into our college years. The 1950s was an extraordinary time to be in High School. We witnessed the birth of Rock and Roll, the Beat Generation, and the initial stirrings of the Civil Rights movement, each of which was a precursor to major trends that followed. We were married in 1963 in California, the year President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It was a horrible shock and both of us remember it vividly. I attended and graduated college during this time. In keeping with the mood of the era I majored in Aerospace Engineering. My wife and I both worked for North American Aviation / Rockwell International in the early 1960s, the company that built the Apollo Moon Landers. I think I was just a little ahead of the revolutionary “anti-war” wave as it engulfed the college campuses. That and the fact that I was married and commuting to school for the last couple of years, isolated me a bit from the uproar. I still remember the power of its impact and still listen and thrill to the music that came from those times.
After college graduation we relocated to the Puget Sound region of Washington State where I worked for the Boeing Co. I had the distinct pleasure of starting my career in a world where the computer was new and exciting but still a faint glimmer of what it would become and finishing my career in a world completely consumed and transformed by its presence.
Generation S: Our children were born in the 1970s and, though they didn’t know it at the time, they would be among the first to get a ticket to ride on the digital/tech/media magic carpet that would change their world.
Both of us retired in the early 2000s. We experienced the “empty nest” syndrome in 2009 when our last child set off on their own. Our first grandchildren were born in the 1990s and early 2000s. The last of our grandchildren were born in the 2010s. All our family are still living through the experience of the Great Pandemic of 2020 and its accompanying wreckage as well as the unsettled political climate today which is probably one side effect of that time in lockdown.
Murray Family – My Father, Hap, died of a heart attack in 1975 in Torrance, California at the early age of 57. His Father Fred had also died, earlier in 1975. Tragically, my Grandmother Bessie lost her husband and her son in the same year. My Mother, Babe, died in 1993 in Temecula, California. Hap and Babe are interred in Sunnyside Mausoleum in Buena Park, California.My Grandmother, Bessie, died in 1986 in Salem, Oregon. My grandparents Fred and Bessie are interred in Portland Memorial Mausoleum in Portland, Oregon.
Tunison Family – My maternal grandfather Joe Tunison died in 1949 in Philomath, Oregon. I wasn’t around my mother’s parents much as a child and was only a small child when he died. He was a farmer, first in Minnesota and later in Oregon, and I remember him as a quiet and hardworking man. My mother’s mother Mabel Tunison/Potter had remarried after Joe passed away. She also survived her second husband’s death. During her last years, she lived alone in her little motor home on the property of her youngest daughter Bev. I remember Grandma Tunison well and I loved the way she spoiled us when we visited her, flavored with just a little of her old fashioned stern farm wife thrown in to keep us in line.
Summers Family– My Wife’s parents retired in the late 1960s and built a retirement home in Wafford Heights, California which is on a lake fed by the Kern River in the mountains east of Bakersfield. Delbert died in 1986 near Bakersfield, CA. Sadly, both of our mothers died in 1993. Hazel died in Garden Grove, CA. Delbert and Hazel are buried in Garden Grove, California. Our first grandchildren were born in the 1990s and early 2000s.My wife’s paternal grandmother, Nevada (Cary) Summers, died in 1950 near Tulsa in Bixby, OK.
McLaughlin Family – My wife’s maternal great-grandmother, Eve Catherin (Marshall) Stallard died in 1955 in Cimmaron Co., Oklahoma.
Awakening: Consciousness Revolution (1964-1984)
The 1960s were a remarkable sight. The Baby Boomers were growing up and they didn’t wait for anybody to give them permission. A massive social experiment exploded on the scene and overwhelmed everything in its path. Open morality, drugs, very loud and frenzied music, the Civil Rights movement the Green Revolution, Women’s liberation, shocking assassinations, radical politics of every persuasion, and distrust of those in power drove the youth culture of the 1960s and 1970s. The Vietnam War was being fought in Viet Nam as well as in the placard filled streets of cities and college campuses all over the United States.
People:
United States–
World–
Events:
United States– July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon
World–
Family:
Murray Family–
Summers Family–
Unraveling: Culture Wars/Financial meltdown (1984-2008)
The Turn of the Millennium came and went without any of the predicted existential threats materializing. There was a serious financial meltdown soon after, but it probably didn’t need a new millennium to make it happen.
People:
Events:
Family:
In 1984 we experienced the wrath of Mt. Saint Helens as it blew its top in a spectacular eruption. We were quite a way from the mountain, but we felt the initial blast and had ash falling on our house and property, off and on, for a few days.
Crisis: Social Unrest/Pandemic (2008 – now)
The recovery from the “Great Recession” of 2008 and the election of Barack Obama, the first African American to be President in U. S. history dominated the early years of our present era. As time passed however, cultural polarization and the election of a very divisive U. S. President led to increasing unease and disruption in the country. With that backdrop, the impending 2020 Presidential election is taking place amid a global pandemic caused by a Virus known as Covid-19, of unknown origin and, despite unimaginable resources being spent to understand it, of unknown weaknesses. It has ground the health system, the social system, and the financial system of the U. S. to a pulp and is standing in the middle of the street daring us to come out and play.
People:
Events:
Family: