What’s it like being middleaged, middle income, white American today? Let me tell you baby, it’s not easy!
• It’s kind of like being caught with your pants down. You’re not sure whether to go ahead and pull them off with an air of gay abandon or quickly pull them up, with a very red face!
You’re too young to be old and positive that everything you think you know is absolutely right; but you’re too old to be young enough to think that everything you think you know is absolutely right.
There you are — right in the middle. The right hand nailed to a cross of old time morality, old time religion, old time politics and a myopic unawareness. The left hand nailed to a cross of space walks, T.V., organ transplants, premarital sex, drugs, and a strong desire to do over the Establishment, or perhaps do away with it altogether.
If that’s not enough to unglue you, add to it the present day niceties of race relations. Some (not all, thank God) of our Black brethern feel that if we are nice and try to “get along” we’re being condescending, and if we’re not nice and don’t try to “get along”, we’re racist!
Which way to jump, (maybe out the window would be best but that’s chicken — at least by the right hand philosophy.)
We’re asked to bear the major burden of an enormously expensive welfare program; the merits of which are hotly debated. We’re asked to be compassionate and understanding of youthful students who seem to regard education institutions as the proper place to destroy property and disrupt classes. This is also hotly debateable. We’re asked to do away with capitol punishment for capital crimes. Let’s legalize abortion (euthanasia next). Is religion relevant? Are we able to relate to others? Why shouldn’t young people live together, without benefit of clergy, if they really feel for each other?
We’ve got problems! Hellsapoppin, again. Viet-Nam in your living room. Drug peddlars everywhere. Don’t eat the polluted food and don’t drink the polluted water, or you’ll die. Do, and you’ll die anyway. Cars are killers. Cigarettes are killers. Do you know where your children are? Did you eat your Corn Flakes for breakfast, brush your teeth with Gleam, rinse your mouth with Scope (once in the morning does it) and use the Right Guard?
Our feet are nailed to the cross of economics. That’s supposed to hold them down, but inflation seems to keep coming along and encouraging them to float away gently on the summer breeze.
Do you perhaps feel you are walking on quick-sand? Does your head spin a little?- Do you feel a bit queasy? Vision slightly blurred? Little headache? Well, then you know how it feels to be middle class, white American today.
We’re not an insensitive group. Honestly — we seem to have all the right questions. If you find anyone with all the right answers (or even just a few right answers) would you please let us know and hurry —
Originally published in The Paper, September 1970.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1970_09.pdf, printed page(s) 2.
