Praising Millennials, and Running From One of Them

ANYONE NOW BETWEEN THE AGES OF fifteen and thirty three is a "millennial". They who reach the age of eighteen in the third millennium = millennials. Great bunch of folks, in spite of their incessant staring at smart phones and inability to comprehend a world without Facebook and Tweeter. Smart as a thump to the rump as well, those kids. My sister, another boomer, after touring a new high school, declared that she would be incapable of passing in today's world. I tried to assure her that a flute is still a flute, Spanish is still Spanish, and that anybody can read history from a computer screen - but it didn't work. Something she saw hanging on the walls spooked her, and she hasn't stopped running since. Yo! Sis! Ya gots a college degree! You can hang, girl. No go. Well, OK. Fine. Be that way. They outnumber us. Enough of my classmates have died that the millennials have us down by about five million, and teh gap is growing daily. But that's a good thing, because them kids are less racist, more progressive, and a darned sight better looking than we. Plus, many of them drive those cute li'l scooters around campus, and you got to love that; they want to save the environment, and they want to save money, which, they will discover all too soon, will never be possible for them. They are the generation which brought us gay marriage; the Supreme Court merely affirming the ruling by a higher court. And they are the generation which has the opportunity to not only save the world, but also to elect one of their to the nation's highest office, chairmanship of the national Chamber of Commerce, and to elect Bernie Sanders to a lower office, the American presidency. It is they who are turning Bernie's campaign rallies into popular uprisings. I went back to college recently at the age of sixty, this time as a journalism student, after teaching in the public schools interminably. There sat hundreds of millennials, row upon row in too closely packed classrooms, I pads open, screens filled with subject matter other than the subject matter. How cute. Take a few notes, read a few texts, take a few more notes. The professor neither knows nor cares. I sat there with archaic equipment: pen and notebook. I simply didn't have any emailng or texting to get done, and anyhow, I kinda like looking at the professor during a lecture. Call me crazy, or antiquated. No matter. I'll be off planet soon enough, and they can take over. One of the twenty year olds took a shine to me - didn't she notice my gray lack of hair? Hell, she pretty much invited me over. I can see it now. We awaken together in the morning, finally recovered, well rested, a few calories shy, and I say: "so, um..what are your plans?" Oh, she plans to save money as a waiter - oops, server - then, its on towards her college degree, and career. What about you, sir? Well, my current plan is to kick it around a few more years, all the while becoming extremely old rather than reasonably old, and then, well, I'll go ahead and die. That's why I didn't take her up on it. I hope she'll someday understand. Its flattering to be thought cute by a millennial chick. Most guys my age would have jumped at the chance. Not me. I don't want to go through the pain of reminding a young lover that I have no plans other than to die in a few years.