The Generation Gap

     How do you know when you become part of “the older generation” in your family? Growing up there was a clear line of demarcation between the older generation and the younger. Old folks stayed in the house watching Hee Haw, or Gunsmoke, drinking coffee and talking, while we young people were out in the yard playing kickball or catching crawdads in the creek. Sitting at the kids table meant you were in the younger generation, same for having to sit outside, or holding your plate in your lap on the living room couch. Kitchen table seating was irrevocably reserved for the older generation, and as quickly as someone from “coach” would be ushered out of first class on a plane, any transgressors from the younger generation would be “shooed” out of the kitchen with a, “Ya’ll young’uns git on outta here!”

Grandparents were clearly the older generation, as they were the oldest in the family. The hoary head was the possessor and caretaker of decades of wisdom and generations of family history, a sort of octogenarian oracle. Uncles and aunts were generally consider the older generation too, with the occasional anomaly like the uncle or aunt who was closer to your age than your parents age because they were a late arriving “oops” baby (I’m looking at you Uncle Ryan Britton). And then of course there was the “cool” aunt or uncle that preferred to hang out with the younger generation and play with G.I. Joe’s, Lego’s, Stomper’s, or Transformers (I’m looking at you Uncle Ricky Hood). Identifying who is the older generation and who is the younger is pretty obvious, but how do you now when you have crossed that bridge officially, and have been formally inducted into the fraternity of the family elders? Perhaps it is just a matter of the wheel of time rolling along until we are the next domino in the line waiting for our time to fall. Grandparents, great-uncles and aunts die, and, in a moment, for a moment, we are the older generation. While this is certainly true, I believe the initiation rituals begin long before the deaths of our ancestors occur.

Most aunts and uncles were filed under “older generation” because they were the adults responsible for cooking the food and cleaning up the dishes at our family gatherings. Responsibility like this isn’t just handed out indiscriminately, it begins with simple, subtle things like making food and bringing it to the gatherings, as opposed to just showing up and enjoying the things others have prepared. You know you have advanced when you are entrusted with recipes for dishes that are essential to every gathering, like chocolate oatmeal cookies, banana pudding, and from scratch biscuits. Closely guarded recipes which are passed along with the kind of sacredness and reverence usually afforded to scripture. 

Induction into the older generation certainly requires logging time cleaning up. Not just putting the dishes in the sink or trash in the can, but actually sacking up the garbage and taking it out. Or washing, drying, and putting away the dishes, a task usually accompanied with the sharing of a story. Something like:

“This tea pot belonged to my Grannie. She got it as a wedding present from Pa Jim when they lived in that house out Fall River.” 

Listening to, and then learning to retell these stories functions like reciting vows, or taking an oath that you will not be the one to break the chain linking present and past. Eventually you begin to introduce your own stories to the ever growing narrative, by talking about what things used to be. Like when the Subway used to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken (not a KFC), back before it was a our first video store in town. Or when Shelter Insurance was Uncle Stanley’s restaurant The Hearth, after it was Matt’s Hamburgers, where my momma used to work, and where she met my daddy.

“Do ya’ll remember when that check cashing place used to be the Dixie Maid? Man I miss their cheeseburgers and milkshakes. The highlight of my week when I was little was when momma would take me on Friday night and let me walk up to the window and order. What I’d give for one of those milkshakes right now.”

Even as a kid I was somewhat of an old soul, enjoying sitting and listening to the old folks tell their tales of days gone by as much as I enjoyed playing in the yard with the rest of the kids. Time has yet to erase the magical feeling I had the first time I shared a story in a family circle and all of my elders listened, laughed, and added their comments. It was the folktale version of a pot luck, where everyone contributes something, resulting in a feast that we all share and we all leave filled. Why do we do that? We talk about these things and we tell and retell these stories every time we get together because we are preserving our tradition and heritage orally, no different from the Bedouin’s, Israelites, Saharan tribesmen, or Native Americans. Our dishes, blankets, jewelry, and trinkets are far more than just family heirlooms, they are stories and history waiting to be shared so that they will be granted life for at least one more generation.

Initiation into the older generation is complete once you begin to look forward to doing the things that you used to dread. I always hated putting up the tree and decorating for Christmas, but now it is an excuse to immerse myself in nostalgia for a full month. As a child I always thought it weird, a little gross, and kind of scary, that we would go to the cemetery for holidays, birthdays, Decoration Day, Mother and Father’s day. The older folks always wanted to clean off the “grave rock” and put new flowers on the head stone. Grave yards are creepy in a cool way for teenagers, but just plain creepy for little kids, and yet the older people get the more they become a place of somber peace. 

Recently I enjoyed an afternoon at the Lynnville cemetery with my memaw. She wanted to clean off the tombstones of her grandparents and parents and put new flowers on them both. We took our time walking, and talking of life and death, tragedy and loss, the setting ever cautioning us not to be in a rush, but to absorb every moment we are granted. As we navigated the field of stones she pointed to this grave, and then that one, each time telling me, not just the occupants of the plot, but stories about them. People who were long gone from this earth but were remembered because of a kindness they had shown her, in some cases, way back in her childhood. Perhaps Mark Anthony was wrong when he suggested, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good if oft interred with their bones.” At least he was on this day. The following day I took my mother to the cemetery at Shores Baptist Church, the final resting place of her momma and daddy and one of her brothers, and eventually most all of our kin. My first memories of this place are cold, and gray, and grim. This was the place I first felt the sting of death as I watched them lower my Grandaddy Sam into the ground. I was only eight years old and it was late November. This was the place that my Big Mamma was lowered into the ground. It was in December. But this was a very different day. No one was wearing black. The sky was blue, the sun was bright, the grass was green, and the rose bushes were in full bloom. On this day I reflected upon death, but I relished life. The focal point of the tombstone was a picture of my grandparents together, laughing and holding hands, side by side. Standing beside me was my mother, and it was the day before Mother’s Day. I cried, but I did so with a smile on my face. I enjoyed it. Hmmmm. Looks like I just crossed the generation gap.