Wearing my Poppy in Prose

 I am a member of a very small ‘cohort’, a cohort being the term used as people of a like age are characterized. I qualify as both a member of the Silent Generation and as a War Baby.  And I am the child of a father who served in the navy during almost all of WWII and its immediate aftermath. (He was discharged from service in 1946, skeletally thin and newly released from hospital.) My father had had only brief visits with me during those years; it was almost like a new family for him and for me when he returned home for good.

 The ‘Silent Generation’ refers to people who were born between 1925 and 1945. There are several theories as to where the label 'Silent Generation' originated. The children who grew up during this time worked very hard and kept quiet. It was commonly understood that children should be seen and not heard. The Silent Generation (age 77-94) is often characterized as thrifty, respectful, unassuming, and loyal. (Baby boomers (age 58-76) are portrayed as demanding, self-assured, independent, and competitive.*)

 Because of childhood experiences, the Silent Generation is characterized as holding people who tend to be thrifty and prefer to maximize the useful life of goods and who are distant from technology (although this gap has narrowed in recent years). For that reason, they are people who value talking in person, contact with others and the more traditional means of communication such as radio, television or newspapers. (I find many of us blogging, but that may simply a factor of where I am looking and whom I am reading.) In addition, as elderly people, they are a group that has contributed a lot to society thanks to their legacy, mentality and behaviour.

Understanding the differences between generations creates a bridge between them. Please note that most of the information above was put together after a quick Google search and cut and paste from Wikipedia and several other sources. The material below is all mine.

 I was born in 1942, while my father, RCNVR, was the Executive Officer of a corvette being built and fitted out in Levi, Quebec and later in Halifax. I was born because he, although he enlisted in the Navy shortly after the start of WWII, had a ‘shore job’ in 1941 in Winnipeg where my mother joined him. I qualify, therefore, as a ‘War Baby’ also, although not, according to definition, as a ‘War Child’. You can look this up to see the difference. Children my age are either the children of parents who did not fight in WWII or anomalies such as I am. We preceded the Boomers and, in most cases, were and are heartily sick of them. In my case, the high school I attended was under construction, being added to in order to house the bulge of Boomers following me and my English class, in particular, was accompanied by the noise of building. Boomers did me one favour, however. The schools were so desperate for teachers when I was in university that I was hired before I had even graduated.

What all of this is leading to is one observation; I hope, a pertinent one. I am a person who has, as a basic, been shaped by war. Certainly not in the way my peer group in Europe would have been shaped, but markedly. My parents’ beliefs and behaviour are a fundamental part of who I am. And hearing my father shouting commands to his gunners because a sharp clap of thunder had pushed him, sleeping, back onto his Corvette, that is formative for a child. Watching my mother obsessively count every penny, fear boats and water, hover over my father’s health, that was a large part of my childhood. They assumed I would be quiet, obedient, get good grades, help in the kitchen. (And in the yard – no brothers.) The way my country’s culture changed between 1959 and 1970 or so was confusing, even frightening, to me as well as to the adults who formed the bulk of the Silent cohort. In many ways it no longer seemed to be my world.

 I am writing this on Remembrance Day, as an honouring memory to my father, whose courage, decency and generosity should be known. He gave five years of his life to keep his family and his country safe, and the rest of his life to dealing with the personal aftermath. If I describe myself as puzzled at what the world I knew became, you should be able to imagine how my father was affected. He truly believed that there might be a world-wide collapse of civilization and urged me to teach my children how to use a bow and arrow and find food in the wild. And he worked, all his life, to make a safer world for me and for his beloved grandchildren, and for his community and his country. The world could use a few more like him, and not silent. Not any more.

*AC, this is not my thought. I cut and pasted it from Wikipedia or somewhere similar. Just so you know, I am not, what do they call it, 'dissing' you. This time.