If you could be born in any year

[Mr. Pickett]

I looked around for any threads on this and didn't see one. I apologise if there already is an elusive thread!

But as the title says, knowing what you know now, if you could be born in any year, which year would it be and why?

 

[Capesofwrath]

I looked around for any threads on this and didn't see one. I apologise if there already is an elusive thread!

But as the title says, knowing what you know now, if you could be born in any year, which year would it be and why?

Well, I think I would pick a year in the nineties for the other half, and then I might enjoy my declining years more. But me, I’m not so sure I’d want to be young now. Looking at the way it’s all going I think I’d be better off dead before all the merde hits the fan.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I was born in the vintage Boomer year of 1947 and I still think I got the best deal ever, along with my whole generation. We were children and young adults in the '50s and '60s, which were great decades (for kids, not always for grownups), the new "miracle drugs"did away with the childhood diseases that had terrified previous generations of parents. We had the incredible post-WWII American prosperity and abundance. We hit our sexual stride just in time for The Pill and had it mostly out of our systems by the time HIV/AIDS came along to spoil everybody's fun. In fact, we were the first and only generation for whom sex wasn't scary - STDs (we called them VD) and unwanted pregnancy seemed to be things of the past. And to top it all off we had the greatest pop music ever! No wonder the other generations hate us so much.

In one thing our timing was off. The advances in geriatric medicine going on right now will prolong youth and life for the newer generation, but too late for us Boomers. On balance, though, I wouldn't trade my birth year for any other.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'll take 1913, fifty years before my actual birth. I'd be just the right age to raise holy hell in the midst of a labor riot in 1937, and maybe crack a scab or two in the head with a blackjack. Or maybe just go to the movies and boo the Hearst newsreel off the screen. Or get arrested for handing out CIO leaflets in Jersey City. There's all kinds of worthwhile and productive trouble a leather-lunged young woman could get into in the mid-thirties, and plenty of people to march alongside her.

And after getting that out of my system, well, the market for radio writers and dialect actors was a lot better then than it is today. Plus I'd be just the right age to enjoy the *real* Greatest Pop Music Ever.

Of course the downside of that is that I'd probably have to live thru the fifties, which would have been very much not a Golden Era for someone with a record like the one I'd probably accumulate. That'd be my name in Red Channels, right there on page 109, in between Paul McGrath and Burgess Meredith. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ As your post implies, it is amazing how rapidly our culture, not only the surface things, but the political, economic, social and geopolitical environment changes in any ten year span. Prior to the industrial revolution, there were times when things stayed the same for centuries in some countries, but as you point out, even if there is a decade in the 20th Century that you'd love to live in, you'd quickly be in one you like less.

My Dad was born in '24, was "middle class" until '33 when his dad died, then experienced the depression hard, survived WWII, and he and his mother got back on their feet in the post-war '50s. By the second half of the '60s, he had no idea what was going on (and was not against it - certainly not all of it - but said it felt like it was all falling apart), was clearly out of pace with the cultural mishmash of the '70s and even the '80s (his work ethic, word-is-your-bond world was gone by then) and he, I think, felt very out of touch with the culture when he passed away in '90. Looking back, I bet he enjoyed '46 - '66 the most as the depression and war were over, their small business did okay and the culture wasn't alien to him. Just one man, but a good example of the fact that no matter when you were born in the 20th Century, it was going to be a wild ride.

 

[GHT]

I was born in the vintage Boomer year of 1947 and I still think I got the best deal ever, along with my whole generation. We were children and young adults in the '50s and '60s, which were great decades (for kids, not always for grownups), the new "miracle drugs"did away with the childhood diseases that had terrified previous generations of parents. We had the incredible post-WWII American prosperity and abundance. We hit our sexual stride just in time for The Pill and had it mostly out of our systems by the time HIV/AIDS came along to spoil everybody's fun. In fact, we were the first and only generation for whom sex wasn't scary - STDs (we called them VD) and unwanted pregnancy seemed to be things of the past. And to top it all off we had the greatest pop music ever! No wonder the other generations hate us so much.

In one thing our timing was off. The advances in geriatric medicine going on right now will prolong youth and life for the newer generation, but too late for us Boomers. On balance, though, I wouldn't trade my birth year for any other.

Another baby-boomer here. 1946. ISW more or less hit the mark, heretic that I am, the sixties musical explosion holds no poetic licence for me, I have quite a few records from that period, all mono, many first editions, all collecting dust. The geriatric research, stem cell technology and other advancements will make life easier to live with, in your dotage. Right now I could do with a new hip joint, but I really don't want to live longer. If I chose any year before 1946, chances are I would have to contend with armed conflict one way or another. If I chose a date in the future, it would be a case of fear of the unknown. So the immediate years following WW2 is probably the best, for all it's pitfalls.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I was born in the vintage Boomer year of 1947 and I still think I got the best deal ever, along with my whole generation. We were children and young adults in the '50s and '60s, which were great decades (for kids, not always for grownups), the new "miracle drugs"did away with the childhood diseases that had terrified previous generations of parents. We had the incredible post-WWII American prosperity and abundance. We hit our sexual stride just in time for The Pill and had it mostly out of our systems by the time HIV/AIDS came along to spoil everybody's fun. In fact, we were the first and only generation for whom sex wasn't scary - STDs (we called them VD) and unwanted pregnancy seemed to be things of the past. And to top it all off we had the greatest pop music ever! No wonder the other generations hate us so much.

In one thing our timing was off. The advances in geriatric medicine going on right now will prolong youth and life for the newer generation, but too late for us Boomers. On balance, though, I wouldn't trade my birth year for any other.

I agree. '47 here too. Perfect time to grow up, especially in the midwest.
HD

 

[vitanola]

Either '86 or '95. Growing up in the last years of the century, coming of age during the Roosevelt and Wilson administrations, living through the 'Twenties as an adult, and dealing with the cataclysm of the Depression as an established adult, with hopefully some small resources and social capital, and the understanding which comes of maturity. The cavalcade of Amercica's growth and maturation. What a show!

 

[ChiTownScion]

1954 here. Suppose that, if I could have chose to have born in a different year, it would have been a year that would have allowed me to grow up in the golden age of steam railroading and become a locomotive engineer at a time when passenger trains were common. To take the throttle of, say, the Overland, the Pennsylvania Limited, or the Olympian, at high speed under steam... that must have been awesome.

 

[GHT]

To take the throttle of, say, the Overland, the Pennsylvania Limited, or the Olympian, at high speed under steam... that must have been awesome.

Well it might not be as magnificent as some of the huge steam trains of America, but you could achieve that: "Before I die, wish." How high is it on your bucket list? Here in the UK we have some 150 or so, heritage railways, run by volunteers, with a track distance ranging from a mile or so up to eighteen miles. Most offer the chance, for a fee, to be an honorary fireman. Save your pennies and come on over, and just to keep your good lady sweet, pack your best bib and tucker and take her on a ride on a nostalgic steam hauled excursion. Enjoy the Pullman cars, the silver service and the wonderful ambience of yesteryear. We have a number of tour operators who put on this amazing spectacle, this company is just one of them. So stop dreaming and start scheming. Just a heads up if you do look up those websites, we Brits use the term, holidays, in it's generic form, as you would vacation.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Anyone ever read Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series? The protagonist is born in 1900 and the story begins as young Lanny (American, but largely raised in France) gets a gig translating at the Peace Talks at the end of WWI. He goes on to hang-out with all the famous artists in the 1920s. Then sees the crash and recession before getting heavily involved in the Spanish Civil War, and then he becomes Roosevelt's special agent in WWII. The romantic in me thinks that being born in 1900 would have provided a great front-row seat to the golden era. (The realist in me might not wish that on anyone.)

 

[ChiTownScion]

Well it might not be as magnificent as some of the huge steam trains of America, but you could achieve that: "Before I die, wish." How high is it on your bucket list? Here in the UK we have some 150 or so, heritage railways, run by volunteers, with a track distance ranging from a mile or so up to eighteen miles. Most offer the chance, for a fee, to be an honorary fireman. Save your pennies and come on over, and just to keep your good lady sweet, pack your best bib and tucker and take her on a ride on a nostalgic steam hauled excursion. Enjoy the Pullman cars, the silver service and the wonderful ambience of yesteryear. We have a number of tour operators who put on this amazing spectacle, this company is just one of them. So stop dreaming and start scheming. Just a heads up if you do look up those websites, we Brits use the term, holidays, in it's generic form, as you would vacation.

The Puffing Billy Railway of Australia is definitely on the Bucket List: it has an "Engine Driver For a Day" option that seems fun. I like those Pullman excursions in the UK as well. I remember when that graceful lady Flying Scotsman toured the US when I was a boy.

We're restoring a Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" here in the US, in Cheyenne. With tender, it was the largest steam locomotive in regular service.I think that if/ when it hits excursion service, a number of my Brit rail enthusiast colleagues will be heading over to view the behemoth run again.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I remember waiting at the train depot with my Mother to ride the steam locomotive from mid Indiana to Chicago several times each summer during the early '50s. It was quite an experience for a young boy. The steam blowing out on the loading platforms and the loud train whistle as we started moving, and through each town along the way. I have vivid memories of the black waiters with fancy red waist coats carrying large trays of food into the dining car and the sleeping births (I think that's what they were called) with pull curtains. A noisy clacking rhythm that could incredibly quickly put you in dream world.
My Grandfather had been a WW1 Colonel and ran the V.A. in Chicago at the time, so we stayed with them in a large home on the VA grounds. Played ping pong at the canteen and enjoyed the bowling alley. There was always fun things to do.
The ride home was even something to look forward to. Mother and I sitting in our own train 'compartment' watching the miles of scenery clack on by and the noisy steam escaping after arriving at our return destination. Every summer for a few years of my young life those trips were so exciting.
The early '50s was a good time to be a child. Wouldn't change it for anything. Never forget the first time I walked into air conditioning when the local drug store added that remarkable luxury. My buddies and I would sit at the soda fountain slowly sipping a soda and making it last as long as we could to soak in the new super cold AC (until they run us out). Ha..I could go on and on about growing up during that era.......
HD

 

[Benzadmiral]

I'd go for 1947 in many ways too. But being 18-20 in 1965-1967, and being subject to the draft and the chance to get my hide ventilated in a little country in SE Asia, would not be A Good Thing. If the postulate is that we know what we know now, then perhaps I would have found some way, without fleeing to Canada, to avoid said chance of ventilation. Weren't there college deferments? (I registered in 1971, so the lottery was the thing then.) And weren't there "essential fields" that were exempt?

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I rode the Sunset Limited from San Antonio to L.A. in 1956, when I was 9. It was a fabulous way to travel. As to the draft, there were all sorts of deferments to be had. Scions of wealthy and politically connected families never had to worry about being drafted. Being young and dumb, I volunteered and ended up in Vietnam, but luckily came home with an unperforated hide.

 

[Seb Lucas]

It's not so much when but where. 1947 in Soviet era Russia might not be so great. The circumstances seem to me to be more significant than the timeframe.

 

[green papaya]

Ive always been interested in the Turn of the Century, so maybe sometime around 1880's and experiencing Old San Francisco and visiting Sutro Baths around 1895 and try the sea water swimming pool and other attractions, and the old Cliff House.

the Spanish American War era and the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906

but for actual better living conditions, probably early 1950's era , I like the styles, back when the "crew cut" or flat top was popular and the old ice cream shops or soda shops, the classic cars, etc.

 

[rocketeer]

I think it would have to be the same day and year I was born. That way I could live my great life again, maybe chat up the girls I fancied but was a bit scared of and make a couple of better decisions about how my future may turn out. But basically live my life again.
I know plenty of people who love the 40s and 50s, and wish they were born then, but I don't know anyone who was born in these times and experienced the death and horrors of war etc who ever says they wish they could live those times again without cherry picking the best bits.

 

[Bushman]

Some time in the early '30s. That way, I can come of age in the late '40s. Even though I would probably have served in Korea, it's still better than serving in 'Nam. At least I would be able to enjoy booming post-war America.

 

[tonyb]

I suppose all of us have entertained thoughts of what our lives might have been had we been born earlier.

But note how few fantasize about coming along later. This, of course, is on account of the world we know being inherently less curiosity-inducing than that which came before we drew breath.

Like many here, I hold a certain fascination with the world my parents and grandparents knew as young people. I knew those people well, and much of what they knew I know as well. I can live in a house that stood when they were young. I can visit the places they visited. So yes, their world was different but not exactly foreign. The remaining vestiges of that world connect me to it. But I still never lived then, so I will never truly know it.

In my later years I've found myself treasuring what remains of what was new when I was a kid. That atomic-era stuff -- the architecture, the commercial signage, the furniture and the automobiles and the clothing -- is now more than half a century old and is to contemporary people as Victorian stuff was when I came along.

I only know what I have seen. It's truly all I know. I might think I have a pretty good feel for the world my grandfather knew, and in some ways that might come close to being true. I knew my granddad well, and for a period during my early years I lived in with him in the house that stood before he was born.

If I am certain about anything in his worldview it was that he was no misty-eyed nostalgic. And I'm certain that in most ways my early years were much easier and happier than his.