I'm not sure about everyone else but I have always had a vivid memory of key events in my life. Good and bad, memories have a tendency to bring clarity to our lives and separate fantasy from reality. So as I'm writing this the word WE means all of our generation collectively. It is just my opinion based upon how I remember it..

I think in order to understand how we have evolved from the 60s to today we first need to remember the 50s. The fact is we were all "War babies". A huge generation that entered the world after WWII. Our parents made it their life's work to be certain we had a better life. They sacrificed so that our lives would be filled with promise and prosperity and not the chaos, uncertainty and destruction they lived through a decade earlier. The 50s were family building years. The birth of the suburbs was a unique transition from the rural lives of most of our parents. I myself was born on a dairy farm in central Connecticut. I moved to Columbus as a young boy with my mother and attended my father's graduation in OSU stadium in 1956. There were about 70,000 people living here at that time. It took me a while to learn that I was now in a city and not running behind my father's tractor. Instead of waking up daily to the sound of 400 cows, there were people and cars everywhere. I remember my life as a child being a blend of dicipline and astonishment. I watched my parents forge a new life. They transformed themselves through education, hard work and sacrifice. My sister born after me was what I call a suburban child. So she missed out on the early adventures in the Serra family.

But no matter what our roots were like back then we were all instilled with the belief that in America all things were possible. We were taught that you can be anything you want if you put your mind to it. Our parents made certain we had a distinct sense of right and wrong. As I recall we found ourselves attracted to the wrong side more than the right on many ocasions. Never the less we were given values and standards as well as the gift of independent thought. We were given a modern education. These were the "GO" years of American life and things were good. Our parents thrived. The ecconomy grew and USA was the envy of the world. Our teenage years were fun unlike our parents who lived their youth as part of the family labor force. Little did we know how our childhood development would shape our adult lives. After high school we parted with the regimen of form, function and discipline.

Our individual paths to adulthood was as varied as our personalities. Then a few years later in 1968-1969 a funny thing happened we began to take our place in the world. However the world got a bit more complicated and this country lost it's way. So this is where we come in, our generation of baby boomers.The greatest era of development this country ever experienced was done by our generation.Completed largely by the way we were raised and by bringing conscience to the table. All those corny ideals and the sense of do the right thing that our parents taught us crept into our personal fiber and blended with our own sense of order and humanity. Some of us organized, protested, objected to the party line. We stood up as a group and helped forge a standard for Civil Rights, changes to the traditional views of politics, tolerance for the right to speak our minds but most of all a sensitivity to make the world a better place. Sure all of this was layered in "Peace & Love" but the world changed and WE my friends, had a lot to do with it.

Now flash forward to today. Maybe we did a disservice to our children. They have no cause, they have not lived through adversity, they largely lack independent thought. It is sometimes difficult to find their true position on the state of the world...and it seems it is easier to complain than get down to doing something about changing it. Unlike us, they are easily led and rationalize just about anything. Now don't get me wrong Paula nd I love our kids... as I'm sure we all do. They just don't value things the way we do. I guess that's because they weren't part of anything like we were. They weren't part of that great human adventure called the 50s and 60s. 

It is my sincere hope that I have not offended anyone. That certainly was not y intent...This is just the way I remember it !

Carl Serra