A Baby Boomer's Unexamined Life

Ever wonder what it was like to be a baby boomer and live a childhood period that saw automobiles prior to seat belts, jet engines become standard, black and white TV go to color, civil rights become law, and women's lib go mainstream?

     Mr. Williams grew up in a middle class family where his Christian parents had five boys; he was number three. He experienced the Massachusetts magic of a 1960’s era Concord upbringing—attending their schools until the end of 8th grade. Its rich Revolutionary War and early American writers history was felt in school, church, the holidays, even Cub Scouts. We felt like we helped start this great country.

     His family moved to Florida in the summer of 1968 and would remain while he attended Clearwater JFK Jr. HS and the Sr. High School from 9th to 12th grades. He would experience a hurricane and racial strife. Whereas Concord had one black child per grade, Clearwater had a ratio more like 1 black for every 4 whites. Desperately wanting to conform, David joined the football program, along with many other semi clueless boys. The goal back then was simply to batter the kid in front of you on the line—no one questioned this. We gleefully complied.

     Being woefully unprepared for college, David would start at the University of Virginia in 1972. He graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering—despite limited mechanical interest. Still trying to find himself, he had joined the Naval ROTC and received his commission into the Navy upon graduation. This was a whole new experience, extremely structured, with entirely new stresses that again took him mostly unawares.

     Additionally, and no less significantly, the author relates the unavoidable experience of watching his parents grow old and face their mortality (cancer and Alzheimer’s). We should all be so brave.

     The quote “an unexamined life is not worth living” is credited to Socrates.  Massachusetts native Henry David Thoreau both supports and refutes this concept in urging us to slow down and experience all of life in the present. Herewith, the early years of the author’s stressful, trial and error, very unexamined life.