On Generations

Jon's thoughts (Beggar's All) on his generation and on anomalies in generations (those who "escape" the spirit of the age) has me musing. In my own case, it's simply a matter that I really don't belong to my own generation. My mother was 43 when I was born; my father 40. My grandfather was born in 1879, and HIS father was over 40 when he was born! My grandparents did not have indoor bathrooms - a visit with them entailed the use of the "John." Let me tell you: as a kid this I did NOT enjoy! Come to think of it, as a grown up I don't think I'd enjoy it either. They only had cold running water at one sink in the kitchen in the their very last years of their lives when my dad ran a pump and line from the spring where they got their water into the kitchen. They regularly ate food prepared on or in a wood burning stove (and let me tell you: no food I eat nowadays can even begin to compare with THAT food!). Heat in the house came from wood burning stoves, period. My kids are always a bit surprised that the "past" is so "recent" for me. My mom used to tell me stories she heard as a little girl from a relative that remembered what things were like before "the late great unpleasantness between the States" (aka, the utterly unwarranted war of northern agression!). Does this disjunction in generations - account in part for those who do not grow up "in the spirit of the age"? In fact, I didn't fit in with my contemporaries, most of whose parents were the age of my siblings!