A SILENT TRAVELING BETWEEN THE POLES

The following is another paragraph from my essay, "Tom Brokaw's Identity Crisis", about the psychic distance people of the Silent Generation had to travel if they wanted to remain relevant in the Boomer times:

Al Capp from the site FanPix.net

When I summon John Lennon and Jack Kerouac into my imagination, the generational differences that I was attempting to assimilate as a representative Mr. Silent who got on the Boomer bus becomes jarringly obvious. Put Jack Kerouac (born 1922) instead of John Lennon in a public bed with Yoko Ono and imagination grows bizarre. Add in Al Capp’s (born 1909) appearance at John and Yoko's bedside in Room 902 of the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel during the couple’s March 25 through 31, 1969 “love in” and my task of assimilation becomes surreal. Capp’s attack on the couple and his insult to Yoko could just have easily come from the lips of Jack Kerouac or me if I had remained with Wayne’s Conestoga wagons. I have a lot of Al Capp in me. Conflicted impulses to cry about something lost and to laugh with joy about things gained are equally compelling. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZkRdPxQENU&noredirect=1]