Tucker Wachsmuth demonstrates his Electric Meter Lamp at a Friday Night Gathering.

I hope you were fortunate enough to read Cate Gable’s “Coast Chronicles” column in last Wednesday’s Chinook Observer!  It was all about Oysterville — our “regular” Friday Night get-together on July 24th at the “south end” of the village and a second gathering — “Forest Dance Party” just up the road at the house next door to the Oysterville Store and hosted by Julie Reynolds-Grabbe who purchased said house and store several years ago.  According to Cate “Julie’s gathering could not have been more different” than the one here… “though the same feeling of groupiness, love and respect was present.”

 Mario Savio on UC Berkeley campus, 1964.  Member of the Silent Generation.

I am, of course, full of curiosity and, also quite a bit of confusion — based partially on Cate’s description of the gathering here as one of “Boomers.”  Well… probably most were.  But some of us were born well before the so-called Boomer generation and leave it to Cate’s great column to set me off.  As you probably know, those of us born before 1945 are known as “The Silent Generation because we are (presumably) characterized by thriftiness, a strong work ethic, and a deep respect for authority.  Growing up during the Great Depression and World War II shaped them (us) to value safety, stability, and conformity over protest.”  To that I say “STUFF AND NONSENSE” (and quite a bit more, if truth be told.)

Joan Baez, Singer and Political Activist — 1966 — Member of the Silent Generation.

I was born in 1936.  My “respect for authority” died on the vine when I was repeatedly told that my degree in Journalism could not get me a job on a newspaper or magazine; apparently only a sex change could do that!  When I was in my early thirties, by then a 2nd grade teacher in Hayward, California,  (teaching, especially young children, was considered an appropriate occupation for a woman in the 1960s) I worked (with other teachers from neighboring districts) with Mario Savio, activist and a key member of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement who also happened to be one of the “Silent Generation.”  Hand-in-hand we worked with the Berkeley Recreation Department’s after school program to give black kids in jr. high and high schools of the area access to after-school athletic programs  — programs that in those days, even in Berkeley, California were offered to white kids only.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) – Member of the Silent Generation.

Those were the days when Huey Newton and Bobby Seale (also of the “Silent Generation”) lived just a few miles from me and co-founded the Black Panther Party.  It wasn’t too long before Abbie Hoffman (born the same year I was) co-founded the Youth International Party (better known as the Yippies) and a bit later Joan Baez, also of the “Silent Generation” sang us through protests against the Viet Nam War.    To say nothing of Pete Seeger or of Peter, Paul and Mary and a host of others who supported the Civil Rights Movement in the American South by performing at massive rallies, lifting marchers’ spirits with freedom songs, and using their national platforms to amplify demands of racial equality and voting rights.

Peter, Paul and Mary — Members of the Silent Generation.

Most of the Silent Generation is, indeed, silent now.  But some of us are still alive.. and still remember… and are still clapping for all of you younger generations who speak out and march and protest as we did before you.  We weren’t silent — god knows.  We were busy — fighting wars, battling the Depression, trying to encourage those who had little hope and even less help.

How soon we forget…