My Generation

People try to put us down (talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Just because we get around (talkin’ ’bout my generation)
Things they do look awful cold (talkin’ ’bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (talkin’ ’bout my generation)

In 1965 Pete Townsend and the Who weren’t and didn’t want to be like their parents. They were ‘talkin’ ‘bout my generation’ in an ageless anthem for young people who want to be noticed and listened to.

‘Hope I die before I get old’, is a sad, almost prophetic line; Keith Moon, the Who drummer, died when he was only 32.

Yet Pete Townsend, and many of ‘my generation’ didn’t die before we got old. We still need to be ‘talkin’ ‘bout my generation’.

I’m told that ‘my generation’ are vulnerable, filling care homes and hospital beds, requiring extra resources, causing anxiety to younger family members.

‘What great things some men have done in the later years of their life. Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel lying on his back on a scaffold when almost 90; Paderewski at 79 played the piano superbly; at 88 John Wesley preached every day; Tennyson when 88, wrote ‘Crossing the Bar.’ Booth Tarkington wrote sixteen novels after 60, some of them when he was almost totally blind.’ – Walter Knight

‘My generation’? Not those who retire but those who inspire. Today, perhaps more than any other time, ‘my generation’ needs to step up. In our families, churches, and communities we need to be the compassionate example, the empathetic mentor, the listening ear.

St Paul commended older widows, ‘…over sixty… faithful to her husband…well known for her good deeds, such as the bringing up of children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds.’ (1Timothy 5:10)

He was ‘talkin’ ‘bout my generation’…