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Baby Boomers Lose Two Icons on One Sad Day

The Huffington Post, 6/25/09

Abstract:

If, like me, you grew up in the 1960s and 70s, the soundtrack of your life included the Jackson Five and Charlie's Angels was must-see TV. So today is a sad day for a generation -- even for those who found Michael Jackson's lifestyle distasteful and Farrah Fawcett bland. They helped define a generation of Baby Boomers who were too young to claim Elvis and too old to boast about Jennifer Aniston.

It's odd to lose two key representatives of my youth on the same day. I know my parents are used to it. When you reach the seventh and eighth decades of life, there is a certain resignation to hearing about the death of your peers. The obituary page begins to read like a high school yearbook, with a daily relief that your name isn't listed there. But at 52 I'm still shocked by the death of those close to my age, or anyone whose childhood photos are all in color.

Among other things, we tend to define ourselves by the roadmap of celebrities, TV shows and music that we follow throughout our lives. As with certain smells from the past, a song or a TV clip can be almost painfully evocative. So what happens when those icons whose lives ran parallel to our own begin to disappear?

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