Moving masterfully among the throng of thirty somethings gamely trying to remember Cotillion lessons and the young dads with toddlers, the Greatest Generation men commanded attention. They stood out like a starched shirt among rumpled collars.
When a song began, they took hold of their partners with decisive firmness. They led. Their khakis tonight easily transmute into the khakis of the 1940s, their partners move and twirl and transform into the impossible slim beauties in pleated skirts and rolled curls.
These old guys simply dance the youth around them under the table.
It occurs to me that dancing somehow makes the body transparent and the soul visible, like a bright light through the gauze of a moth's wings. The souls of the graybeards on this dance floor are bold, assured, sure of themselves and strutting it. They move through the twirls and hand-offs, the step backs and swing throughs on autopilot, but there is that extra, the little twist of the hip or lift of the shoulder, the smallest of moves that are the most seductive. These couples rise above the chaos around them, the young souls that stumble and search awkwardly for the rhythm, missing a beat, flooded with evident discomfort.
It occurs to me that the 70 and 80 year olds who are dancing to the Glenn Miller Orchestra tonight lived in a time when moral uprightness was black and white. Duty, honor, discipline. And dancing.
My generation stopped dancing as couples. We let go and moved independently. Somehow, we have lost something intangible and important in that change. There is some connection between the moral certainty of this dancing generation's greatness and the moral crisis of my America toying with the methods of evil to see how far we can push, blurring the lines of interrogation and torture.
Dad and I went back for a second dose of Glenn Miller Saturday night, along with over 6,000 others Hoosiers. We gathered around the bandshell on a cool starlit night and soaked up the warmth of the swing. I watched the dancers and reflected.
The minute these seniors step off the dance floor, they shuffle, their backs hunch, they shrink. They look old. What is the magic of the music that lets the young souls shine through? And how can we get that magic back?
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Thanks for celebrating the "Greatest Generation" while we still have them present to honor.
Paws up.
A college degree now is the equivalent of what a high school degree was for their generation. And it seems to me that a work ethic is evidenced by someone who doesn't think they're too good to take any job they can get and still does their best regardless of the social esteem attached to that occupation.
In every life in any era , there is always gray, but the overall decisiveness of the 40s generation differs from the situation ethics of my generation, I think.
Kevin, you make me think- it seems to me that the college kids of the 1940s were the 20% headed for the professions while the 80% found business careers and vocations. Now it is the 80% off to college leaving the 20% to go to work, and many of the 80% come from families whose generations worked in agriculture or manufacturing. The transition is rugged. But Dogwoman's point that the work ethic - do the right thing when no one is watching - has simply lost some of its luster, has merit. My generation was not called the me-generation for nothing. It's a sweeping social generality that of course allows many a personal exception.
We may agree. I deeply respect anyone who is willing to hold down the best job they can obtain and work for a living. My sister, The Wood Elf, has a BA and maybe two masters degrees. In the summers, she used to supplement her teaching career by working as a driver's ed instructor and working at Pizza Hut. I admire that. Another family member wouldn't work unless he could get a job he felt was worthy of him, preferring to live off of relatives instead of lower himself to hold a job he felt was degrading. I couldn't understand how a person could have a spouse and kids and not be willing to take whatever job they could get, even working at a gas station or fast food, in order to support them.
What I am talking about are friends of the family (sons and daughters of friends; even a much younger sibling-in-law) who come out of college equipped to hold a job where they can make a difference, but are unmotivated about applying until they find something close to their chosen field. These kids aren't working as retail clerks because that's the only job they can land. They just don't care to take the time to apply for and land anything better. I've told my own sons, "If you want to work retail, it's your life and that's your call, but if Daddy & I finance your college education, we expect you to bust your butt to get the best job ~ hopefully something related to your field of study ~ that you can get."
In my own life, I make a point to treat all people with respect and to talk with and get to know the various employees I come across on a regular basis, at the grocery, at the auto shop, at the pharmacy, wherever I do business. I don't think a person's worth is defined by their job. I just hate to see a well-qualified college grad doing work they could have landed straight out of HS. In general, I think it's a fair assessment that my father's generation had a more rigorous work ethic than mine (I'm 51), and that my generation has a more rigorous work ethnic than Gen X, Gen Y, and so forth.
Sorry if I wasn't clear.