I’m all over the place. I guess after all this time I can still get worked up when I think about it.
“Where I’m going with this is that, culturally speaking, the mid-sixties was a perfect storm. 1965. Baby boomers came of age and, man, we were pissed. Girls who had two brain cells to rub together were pissed about lack of personhood, not even talking about opportunity. Boys, the ones who weren’t rich or connected, were pissed about the prospect of getting drafted for Vietnam, which couldn’t be framed as a righteous war by anybody but Henry Fonda.”
Gray looked confused. “Henry Fonda was…”
“Jane Fonda’s dad.”
Gray’s look of confusion only deepened which caused Cass to seem a little irritated. Not with the boy, but with ever-growing evidence that her time in the world was nearing an end.
“Never mind. The point is that everybody who wasn’t on drugs was angry about something. Black people had finally had it with being treated like they were subhuman. Women were waking up and reading Betty Friedan…”
She stopped and looked at Gray, remembering that he probably, no certainly, wouldn’t get the reference. “Never mind about that either.
“And the World War II generation was so damn sure they were right about everything, they couldn’t, wouldn’t, hear us. It was the first time in the history of humankind when the idea of ‘generation’ became a line in the sand. Before the 1960’s, people had shared perspectives regardless of age. Music. Pastimes. Religion. Didn’t matter whether you were old or young. Life had more or less been the same.
“Then came the sixties and life as we had known it was exploding. A lot of us were saying good riddance.
“Backlash. Tsunami backlash. We put the act into acting out. Not that it wasn’t called for. It was totally appropriate. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
“I don’t get it. What about the whole Summer of Love thing?”
Cass’s responding laugh was soft and more genuine than earlier. “Glad you asked.
“There was a movement to tear down what our parents had constructed. A consumer economy based on greed. Law enforcement rampant with corruption. A political structure based on greed and corruption. And our parents and grandparents were perfectly fine with the idea of sending multitudes of teenage boys to a tiny country nobody’d ever heard of to die or be permanently mutilated in a war that was insane. They were still riding the high of believing their own press, that they were the ‘greatest generation’. They believed that if the U.S. was involved, it was automatically a holy war.
“It wasn’t working for anybody, but the people in charge couldn’t see it because their souls had been corrupted beyond repair. Happiness can’t be found in holding power over other people. It’s a dead end. A lot of times, when people become powerful and find that it doesn’t bring happiness, they think it’s because they don’t have enough power to control everything and everyone. Instead of reevaluating, they go for more power. More control. It’s the ugliest kind of depravity. Pure and simple.” She laughed. “And the irony is that it’s un-American. We’re supposed to be about personal freedoms and the sovereignty of the individual.”
She took in a big breath and huffed it out. She held her beer bottle out to Gray. “How about exchanging this for one of those pink wine coolers in the fridge? By the time you get back, I’ll be settled down. Promise.”
“Sure.” Gray didn’t hesitate to do as she asked. As he walked the few feet to the kitchen and back, his mind began processing what he’d heard. He hadn’t known exactly what to expect when he’d knocked on Cass’s door, but it wasn’t this. Still. He said he wanted the real picture.
When Gray returned, he sat and said, “I’m not arguing and don’t take it that way. But isn’t there always greed and corruption at the top?”
“Good point.” Cass smiled. “Enter Disney.” Gray just shook his head. “The difference between my generation and those before? The original Mickey Mouse Club. Idealism became our religion. We eased into the cult with Donald Duck, but were experts on morality and doing the right thing by the time we invented surfer culture as grist for beach movies.
“You wanted to know about the love faction? People are strange, but predictable. There are two ways you can react to extreme pressure. One is to get mad as hell and proclaim that you’re not gonna take it anymore. The other is to insist