The history behind the Baby Boomer Generation gives us an important out look on the way that modern man has developed. In his humoristic essay, "An Early History of the Boomers," Dave Barry speaks about how and why the Baby Boomers became the way they did.
Barry begins by speaking about 1947, asking why the Baby Boomers ended up being the way they are. To begin with the very existance of the Boomer Generation was to be thanked on the history of their parents, after liveing through both war and depression many couples were ready to celebrate by makeing babies. Barry, while immersing the reader in whit, makes two strong points; firstly that television had begun its influence over American audiences and second, the Cold War affected people in a profound mind altering fashion.
Barry progressed on the time line comeing into 1948. After explaining both the game of G-man (an anti-communist version of Cowboys and Indains) and the highlights of many of the years inventions, Barry digressed argueing that modern techniologys, like the television, create what he calls "brain sludge." People became subjected to T.V. programing and commercial advertising, and while many could sing along with the Ajax jingle, few could call the Secretary of Defences name.
Finishing in 1949 Barry continues on about how fear affect people. Useing the game of Cowboys and Indians to exlemplify how the Baby Boomers had been afected, he showed how children had learned to think of American's as superior by telling. Children pretending to be T.V. heroes fought about who is good and who is bad, but everyone one forgot about Tonto, the Lone Rangers heroic Indian friend. American children had the fear of losing their way of life constantly lumming in the back of their mind. These fears were taught to them by parents building bomb shelter and survival kits, and by schools practicing atomic bomb drills(where children would cover their head for safty while huddleing under desks.
