Generational Leisure Time

Once more upon the Stoa this day, we will look at how the different generations view their places both within the work world and that of their leisure time.

We will track one or more members of each generation on their days off from work, to see how they blow off steam and recharge their batteries.

So, with that said, we will turn once again to our Moderator, fresh from a few days stint in the local hospital after being beaten up by a 95 pound Meth-head.

Over the next few days, the Moderator is going to visit our generational constellations around the country to see what they do for fun. It seemed, to him, that every time he held one of these interviews or symposiums, he got hurt, shot at, or gassed. So to prevent this while on the road, he decided to bring some muscle.

Three men. The leader of the group was an ex-office of the Marine Corp, a Gen X'er that served in both Desert Storm, Desert Shield, but also served in Somalia. He was tall, broad with gray hair shorn short. Gray eyes and a face that looked as if it had never seen a smile in all of his 45 years.

With him were two Millennials, also prior military. One black, one white, and each of them nearly as wide as they were tall. When standing idle, they never talked nor shifted their weight much. Hands behind their back with various pouches, Fannie packs and satchels strapped, hung, or latched to various points on their bodies.

His camera crew consisted of a single tall man with a main digital camera. Another man had a smaller camera. A third man had a sound boom and a small sounding board upon which he worked his magic.

Their first stop was out to the high deserts of Arizona. Sun City retirement community. This is where some of the more streamline GIs hung out in their golden years. The GIs were disappearing rapidly. The last of them being born around 1924, they were now in their late 80's and 90's.

The typical GI was young during WWI and a productive adult during the Depression and WWII. The older wave were adults during the Great Depression while their late wavers were adults during the end of the Depression and into WWII. The endured as a group, fought as a group, did great things as a group. They built dams and highways and rockets to the moon. These people thought and acted BIG.

They also played together, hunted together, formed clubs and civic service organizations. They also retired together. Those in government extracted a bonus from the younger generations, who should feel grateful for what had been bequeathed to them through their suffering and sweat. Pensions and Social Security. Medical advances and benefits into old age. They left their own children to have their own lives and then sort of retired into a community founded by their own kind, run by their own kind, and policed by their own kind.

The Moderator drove to the guarded gate at the edge of the GI retirement community. The Arizona sun was baking and the guard shack was properly air-conditioned. He could tell as he pulled up to the booth and the cool air rolled out on him.

There were two guards in the shack. One looked to be a vigorous 80 year old and the other a vigorous 70 year old. They were nice and wave him through, laughing as they did so since they watched his program and thought him a "hoot".

The outdoors activities were mostly occupied by younger members of the community. It was a hot day and the GIs were now very old.

Address in hand, the Moderator strode up to the home of the older of the GI.

A community nurse answered the door and let him in. The home was clean and well decorated. Paths had been laid down in the carpet for a motorized scooter to get about the place without damaging the carpet. Tasteful works of art adorned the walls. One wall had awards and momentous from a lifetime of travel and civic work. A display case was filled with medals and souvenirs from WWII and the Korean War.

The old GI was sitting at a desk with a 42" monitor in front of him. He was typing away at a keyboard.

"Good morning, Sir. May I ask you what you are doing to relax this fine Saturday?"
The Moderator said once he made sure that his staff was ready to record.

"Answering an idiot on the MilBlog. Fool kids can't seem to learn from history. I'm telling him that to take a fox hole you must fire and maneuver until you can drop a grenade into the opening. HE keeps telling me that in Afghanistan you shoot a rocket into the opening and then charge."

"These kids need to keep to the fundamentals. What are you going to do, sit around waiting for a counter attack while you wait for reloads to catch up to you. Shoot and scoot son, shoot and scoot!" His lips turn blue from the exertion.

"Is this what you do for fun," the Moderator asks.

"This among other things. I have a life you know."

"My Saturdays start at 0500. I go to the Gym and work out for an hour, then I have breakfast, then I go to the wood working shop and I make picture frames for my family. Then I answer emails until lunch. Then I work on my own blog until dinner. I usually go out to dinner with friends and hit the sack around 2030. Pretty typical."

The Moderator began to sweat while he listened. This guy's day off was busier than his work day.

"Oh, on Sunday I squeeze in church and the Senior dance. Gotta love those vibrant 70 year old women. Young and spry!"

"Thank you, Sir. Thanks for your service."

The Moderator leaves the home, surprised with the amount of living that his guy squeezes into a day.

Heading across the street, he knocks on the door of the younger GI.

The room was a little more cluttered, but still tasteful. This one too was on the computer, though he could still get about on his own two feet.

He too appeared to be working on a blog of sorts. He was going over blocks of government legislation and commenting on parts of it.

"Sir, what do you do on your day off?"

"The same thing I do every day. I'm retired, you know." He says a bit gruffly.

"You seem to be working on political legislation, sir."

"I consult on legislation initiatives and tie them back to older bills for legal precedence. Very important to have continuity of government."

"I understand Sir, but what do you do for fun?"

"Well, if you must know, I do this and I consult at a variety of civil groups in the area. I have a lot of friends that I go out with. They come over here and we have a good time. Every day is a Saturday for me."

So, with that, the Moderator exits the house. Busy, busy people these GI's.

With this, he flys to NW Illinois, to the rural farmland of the upper Mid-West.

He knocks on the door of the older Silent individual. He answers the door and allows them into his living room. The room is cluttered, almost like a distracted professor who does not file anything away.

The Silents were born between 1925 and 1942. These men grew up in the shadow of the mighty GI generation. The older of them worked hand in glove with their bigger than life predecessors. They worked in the control rooms at NASA, they ran the companies that built the great Highway system projects. They organized the movements in labor that made possible the great post-war booms under the leadership of the popular GI generation. They worked in the Universities that had expanded under the influx of the prior GIs. They set the stage for the education of the vast number of Boomers being born.

He lights a pipe and leans back into a recliner.

"What do you do for fun, sir?"

"Well, during the day I catch up on my reading and my hobbies down in the basement. I build architectural models and I edit technical journals. I'm retired but I keep active and I have fun when I have the time."

He continued, "Later tonight I will be playing cards with friends and chatting with family on Facebook. I get out, but I'd rather stay in."

With that, the Moderator departs. The fellow seems nice enough, but he also seems as dusty and stuffy as the books and stacks of papers around his living room.

Heading down the street, he visits the younger of the Silents. The yard was well groomed, the bushes well ordered. The house was painted and there was a hammock strung between the house and the tree.

Inside, the living room had an exercise bike and a small rack of dumbbells. There was a big screen TV and a mat for aerobics. There was a group of Silents drinking coffee and eating danishes while watching a TV program in the kitchen.

They smoked, drank coffee with some Irish Whiskey, and ate greasy bacon with eggs cooked in the grease.

A woman in the group spoke up at the question, "What does it look like we're doing. We are sitting around watching our shows. We do this all the time. Its is great fun."

A man in the group says much the same thing. Most of them go on and on about where they retired from, how many years they worked at the same place. Most were married more than twice and nearly half of them had an admitted drinking problem. The were loud and rude to one another, but got along. They played cards and argued over Matlock's legal cases.

Stinking of cigarette and cigar smoke, the Moderator beat a hasty retreat.

One of his body guards sneezed, earning a displeased eyebrow from his partner.

Onward they flew to downstate New York. Not the city, but near enough. There the Moderator was to meet the older of the Boomers. It took a while to find him, since he was just returning from a hunting trip and was catching up with his work.

He met him at his apartment studio. It was large and spacious. Costly for the city they were in. Flat panel TVs were all over the place, as were places to sit and drink.

"Oh, I get out to dinner parties and the office on my days off. When people are off on Saturdays, that's when I go in for the kill. I get work done by holding meeting at the racket ball club, at the Men's club, and at the bar. I don't really ever have any time off. When I'm not working I'm planning for work." He says this while answering eMails on his tablet PC.

"Do you have time for kids or grandkids?" The Moderator asks.

"Did that, done that. They are on their own. My kids are busy in there own right and so am I. I come to see the grandkids when I feel like it, but it is sometimes years between visits. I'm just too busy, and I grow tired of them after an hour or two."

"Touching."

"You sound just like my 3rd wife...or was it my 4th, either way, she gripped to much."

"I'm not shocked. Thanks for your time."

Out in the hall, the tall X'er guard informs the Moderator that the younger Boomer has been sleeping in the dressing room back in the studio and is not available for interviewing. When the guards tried to move him along he took an over dose of Ajax cleaning powder and is in the hospital.

"Oh, moving on."

Heading to Michigan, he stops to see the older of the X-ers.

This generation, coming as it did on the heels of the game-changing Boomers has been described as coming to a beach party and finding it trashed with beer bottles and empty syringes in the sand. A policeman standing there to blame you for the mess despite the fact that you just got there.

This generation was the first to have to deal with contraception on the part of their parents. It was also the first to see Roe v. Wade legalized, making it just fine and legal to kill your unborn children. They were the kids that the Boomers got to experiment on in the classroom. The first true victims of the PC culture, despite being the one most experienced in diversity. Theirs has borne the brunt of the economic losses of 2008, seeing their savings vanish while trying to support a home and young family. Often times losing that home their savings, and sometimes their family. They may have to work the rest of their lives to repair their savings.

A knock on the door to a relatively average home in an average neighborhood produced a simple, "Its open!"

Inside was a house of modest means. Virtually no artwork or "nicknacks" were seen. No coffee tables or end tables or lamps or things you would see in older homes. The home was functional with a minimum of fluff. It was not dirty, but it did not sparkle, either. It was not messy, but it was cluttered.

Taking up the center of a wall was a 62" flat panel TV, an XBOX 360 humming away below it. In the middle of the living room was a man in a recliner, earbud with microphone, and a controller in his hand.

"I'm going to be off mike for a bit, guys." He taps his ear but keeps his eyes on the TV. It looked like he was gunning down zombies while running around a maze.

With that he says, "What do you want, Mr. Moderator?"

"Well, what do you do for fun?"

A snort and more clicking on his controller he answers, "Just what you see. I put in 60 hours of work per week. I'm on call all weekend, and I have to help out with all the shopping and the chores. When I can get a moment, I take advantage of that moment."

"Don't you like to go out?"

"When my butt goes numb, I go play tennis or go walking with the family. I do spend time with the kids and family, but, man, they got to leave me alone when I need to stop thinking about my week. Oh, and when my back goes numb from playing tennis, I sit here and kill zombies. Great stress relief."

"You work full time?"

"And then some. I work hard, I work early, and I work late. I do whatever I have to do to keep my job. Life has sucked since 2008 and I need to make sure that it doesn't start to suck rocks. I do this by working my butt off all week. Again, just give me some time on the weekend to decompress and I'll be fine."

"Do you have friends and family?"

"Of course. We chat via IM and Facebook from time to time. I saw my parent a year or two ago. They got issues of their own and they don't seem to be that interested in mine. So I'm good, Dr. Freud."

"Ok, then, we'll be moving on."

Letting himself out, he was followed by the sounds of screaming and automatic gunfire.

They drove across town and took a phone call on the way to the younger X'er. It looks like they will have to skip the Homelanders. The team they were going to interview is now quarantined for the Measles. They also glued each other to each other on a dare.

The Moderator shook his head in wonderment. Well, at least he won't be going home smelling of pudding and chips. Man those kids ate crap.

They pulled up to a low rent apartment building. It was shabby but not too dangerous looking. They could hear TVs playing from the parking lot. A garbage bin filled with empty beer cans spilling out on the grass.

The Moderator buzzed an intercom that went with the name he had come to interview.

After a lengthy delay, the door buzzed and they were admitted. They went upstairs and rounded a corner to apartment #6. The door was ajar and the sounds of automatic weapons fire rolled out in to the hallway.

Upon walking in they saw a 42" flat panel TV on a pile of moving boxes, cables running back to a controller in the hands of a fellow on the couch. He was wearing sweats and a "wife-beater" t-shirt. A plate of half eaten chicken strips with honey mustard sat on a box next to his couch. The kitchen was clean and so was the dining room. The living room had boxes piled here and there, but for the most part it all looked rather lived in.

Zombies were getting creamed on the TV and he barked to other people to go pick up some guy who had just been surrounded.

Tapping his ear, he tipped his head toward the Moderator. "And....", he said impatiently.

"What do you do for fun on your day off?"

He piffled with his lips and then muttered under his breath. The Moderator could not be sure, but it sounded like he'd just been called a "dumb ass".

"I kill zombies and other people who irritate me."

"Is that all? Don't you get out?"

"This is not the belly or food of champions. I've been unemployed for 3 years and any job openings I can find go to people with more experience or less experience. I have not gotten a break for a long time. I apply to 8 places every week and get an interview every now and again. They don't ever pan out. What little money I do have goes to my ex-wife and children. I'm embarrassed to talk to my friends, many of whom are in the same boat as me." He looked over at the Moderator and then back at the TV.

"My work is my job hunt. My work is helping my kids with homework. My work is done every day that I don't put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. That I endure is enough for me. Playing games like this lets me forget just how crappy my life is. Maybe things will get better, but most likely not. I'll keep trying, but I try without much hope in my heart."

"Sorry to have bothered you, we'll be going now."

The Moderator spends a few minutes shaking himself out of the funk this fellow put him in. His main bodyguard has a sympathetic look on his face about the plight of this fellow X'er, but he does not comment on it.

Heading to another part of town, they meet their older Millennial, a different one from the night before, again, at an outdoors art gallery. They are raising money for one charity or another.

A different group of Millennials has gathered across from the art gallery with signs saying, "Lets occupy the "Occupy" movement's tents!" That might actually may be interesting, thinks the Moderator.

He finds the fellow using FaceTime on his iPad to talk to someone in the Sudan. He spoke English and the iPad translated it into some obscure African dialect. The man from Sudan would say something and the words would print out on the bottom of his screen. He looks over at the Moderator as he finishes up his conversation.

"What up, dog?" The Millennial says as he offers up a hand to smack.

"What do you do for fun," says the Moderator as he stares at the hand in the air and most definitely does not "smack" it.

"This and that. We flash mob, flash dance, and trade Flash games. I go to my veteran's reunions with my old unit from Iraq and I go to the graduation parties of my cousins. I'm always out of the house. With my iPad and smart phone you can find me 24/7. I'm always out hanging with my friends or hiking or riding my dune buggy."

"Sounds to me like you live a full life."

"It life. I enjoy it. I work so I can make money to do other things. Older people are so linear. They work to save up money to buy stuff and save. I work to buy stuff and have fun. I trade for other things and I even trade my time. I volunteer for old people and young people. I get gifts for what I do and I make money sometimes also. Its no big deal. The money will be. It always is."

"Say, we are going to dress up as sheep and raid the Serta mattress store in 20 minutes. You want to come?"

"No thanks, I still have some dignity left. I'll be moving on."

They hop a flight to Charleston, WV where they rent a truck to take them into the rural hinterlands of the Appalachian mountains.

As they near a small, rusted trailer park on the side of a mountain, the Moderator leans over to his guards, "watch this one. She tried to tie my tongue around my neck the last time I saw her. She is surprisingly strong."

"I've dealt with the Panamanians AND the Taliban. I think I can handle a little Meth-head."

Ok, then, he thought.

As they approached the entrance to the Trailer Part, they noted a police barricade pulled to the side of the entrance.

Coming to a halt next to a cruiser, the Moderator rolled down his window to speak with the policeman standing there, riot shotgun in hand.

"What's up, officer?"

"Oh, its the DeRoy's again. We've been called out here so much of late that we've just decided to hang out here for a few day. Saves on gas."

So with that, their limo rolled into the park and passed up dozens of rusted out single and double-wide trailers. They rolled up to the address provided by the show's producers. The name on the mailbox said, "DeRoy".

"Shit", swore the Moderator under his breath. He could see there was no mail in the box since the door had been blown off by a shotgun at sometime in the near past.

The sounds of breaking glass rolled out from the single wide as they approached the trailer. He looked over his shoulder at his guards and the police cruisers, not a hundred yards away.

Screaming and yelling seemed to roll from one end of the trailer to the other, though he could't make out what was being said.

The Moderator reached out and knocked on the door with a tissue around his hand.

Heavy footsteps stamped towards the door and the inside door was yanked open. A scrawny twenty-something year old man stood there wearing a white "wife beater" t-shirt with ratty NASCAR cap on his head. He had a cigarette dangling from his lips and smelled strongly of old beer and cigarette smoke.

"What the hell do you want?" He said in a heavy accent. His left tooth was chipped and his eye had been split along the right side of his face. Duct tape held the wound closed rather than a bandage.

A frying pan hit the man from behind and he staggered onto the porch. Before he could fall, filthy hands reached out and grabbed him by the t-shirt, swinging him into the door frame and then down the stairs.

"I WANT HIM OUTTA MY HOUSE. HE AIN'T WORTH A SH*T!"

The Moderator was speechless in front of this little force of nature. Her straggly, black/blond frizz whipped in the wind. Apparently, he was silent for too long and this earned a quickly kicked out foot to the crotch of his black body guard, who went over backwards and landed on the poor fellow trying to get up from the frying pan to the head.

"HE CAN'T EVEN HOLD A JOB!" She hollered.

The man groaned as he rolled off the crying guard. "I try baby, but you know how it is; but you kicked my last boss when you saw my first paycheck. I try..."

"YOU LAZY ASS MOTHER @#$%^&*!" She raged and whipped shoe at him, opening up his other eye. Blood poured down the side of his face.

"Look what you did to my face you crazy b...." Another shoe, this one a high heeled stiletto drilled him between the eyes, breaking his nose and knocking him out.

He slumped over the vomiting form of the black guard.

"I'LL DO IT AGAIN!" She screamed.

The white guard put his arms up to placate the woman, "Ma'am, the Moderator just wishes to ask you a few que...." The pan flew through the air, faster than the guard could even see. It caught him square between the eyes and sent him flying onto the top of the black guard, knocking both the wind and the consciousness from him. The pan spun in the air before landing on top of the pile of bodies.

"I just want to know what you do for fun!" The Moderator blurted out while looking for the cops. The police just sat there, eating donuts and drinking coffee. Apparently, 3 bodies at the bottom of the stairs was not enough for them to roll.

"YOU'RE HERE TO TAKE MY DEAD GOLDFISH, AREN'T YOU!"

The short, slight woman leapt back into the trailer and ran to the front.

The big body guard pulled the Moderator away from the door frame even as it exploded from a shot gun blast.

With splinters in his face and his ears ringing he staggered back to a rusted out car frame sitting in the yard. His body guard rushed in as he thought he heard her re-rack a pump action shotgun.

There was a scuffle and the sound of broken plates and glasses. Another blast blew out a side window above the car he was sheltering behind.

Blue and red lights began reflecting off the side of the trailer as the cops finally began to roll.

A large shape crashed through the remains of the window frame and landed on the roof of the car he was leaning against. His body guard had a gash on the side of his face and his eyes had the crazy look of someone trying to turn the world back right-side up.

"I'LL KILL YOU YOU SOM'BITCH" A smaller framed woman landed hard on his chest, a bent pump action shotgun in her hand. She whacked the guards head a few times and then scrambled over the hood toward the Moderator.

Screaming like a child, the Moderator scrambled backwards, seeing just how far and how fast the human butt cheeks can propel a full grown man.

A barefoot, ranting woman charged across the lawn with a broken shotgun in her hand. She must have broken it over his guard's head.

She jabbed the barrel into the stomach of the sound-man, he grunted and went down, obviously not expecting to become involved in the mayhem. A back swing took out the smaller, secondary camera man. The camera was blown into a dozen pieces, the pieces were hard to tell apart from the teeth that flew through the air next to them.

The main camera began to shake and jitter as the camera man realized the danger he was now in. The audience saw a huge, distorted face fill the screen, her face contorted in insane fury. A loud "crack" sounded and the camera fell over onto the weed-grown sidewalk. A drop of blood ran down the lens. The Moderator appeared to be scrambling away on the side of the wall, due to the camera laying on its side.

"YOU WASTE OF MEAT!" she screamed as she rose the steel barrel of the gun to use as a club. The human butt cheek was not designed for propulsion and she easily caught up to him.

Just as she was about to end the Moderator, 4 taser darts hit her in the chest and abdomen.

She slowed down, convulsing, the gun barrel falling from her hands. She continued crawling in the dirt towards the Moderator, determined to snap his little neck.

Another 4 taser darts hit her in the back, one of the sticking to the side of her head, "SOM'BITCH BUT THIS IS FUN!" She vomited on the Moderator and passed out, her body continuing to spasm and convulse in the electrical discharge.

In a very round about way, he found out what she considers fun.

Everyone responds differently, White Trash is no different. However, the current crop of young white trash is vastly more trashy then when my fellow X-ers were the young trailer park vixens.

Hope you enjoyed.

Live well.

--Zavost