The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way: And It Wan't My Fault: And I'll Never Do It Again

195 Pages·2013·1.66 MB·English

by  O'Rourke P J

THE
BABY BOOM
Also By P. J. O’ROURKE
Modern Manners
The Bachelor Home Companion Republican Party Reptile Holidays in Hell
Parliament of Whores Give War a Chance All the Trouble in the World Age and
Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut Eat the Rich
The CEO of the Sofa Peace Kills
On The Wealth of Nations Driving Like Crazy Don’t Vote—It Just Encourages
the Bastards Holidays in Heck
P. J.
O’ROURKE
THE
BABY BOOM
How It Got That Way
And It Wasn’t My Fault
And I’ll Never Do It Again
Atlantic Monthly Press
New York
Clifford
The Baby Boom is dedicated to the memory of
Bronson O’Rourke and Delphine
Loy O’Rourke, progenitors
thereof.
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit With
statisticians nor commit A social science.
—W. H. Auden
from “Under Which Lyre”
CONTENTS
Preface
Prologue: We Are the World 1 A Regular Old Baby Boomer Speaks
2 A Good and Happy Place
3 Life as We Imagined It
4 In the Doldrums of Fun
5 Mere Anarchy Is Loosed
6 Ends and Means
7 All That Glisters
8 Agents of Influence
9 The Prelude
10 The Man Is Father to the Child
11 The Great Disconnect
12 Era of Good Feelings
13 The Baby Boom’s Garden of Eden—Thanks for the Snake
14 There Shall No Sign Be Given Unto This Generation
15 Dawn’s Early Light
16 Real Life
17 Ripeness Is All
18 Big Damn Messy Bundle of Joy
Acknowledgments
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
—Dr. Samuel Johnson

PREFACE TO A BOOK ATTEMPTING TO CAPTURE
THE SPIRIT OF A GENERATION OF GOD’S
FAVORITE SPOILED BRATS
H
erein is a ballad of the Baby Boom, not a dissertation on it. A rhapsody, not a
report. A freehand sketch, not a faithful rendering. That is to say, I am—it is a
writer’s vocation and the métier of his age cohort—full of crap.
Characters, the narrator included, have been drawn from nature and not from
individuals. Essence has been added and accidens has been omitted. Merry hell
has been played with time, place, personages, and recalled dialogue. Twice-told
tales have been trotted out onto the court for three-peats. (And, come now,
fellow Baby Boomers, confess your own guilt to the same.) Only the most
outrageous and unbelievable things in this book are recounted exactly as they
happened.
THE
BABY BOOM