A Day for Remembering

It is a solemn day as we remember the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. forty years ago. I was a couple of months away from graduating high school and had no way of knowing that Robert F. Kennedy would, too, be assassinated before our commencement. Whatever idealism was blooming in 1968 has since slowly withered away into apathy and cynicism. We boomers were aptly labeled, but for the wrong reason. The title is derived from the swell of newborns following World War II, but more appropriately describes all of those living in the wake of the Atomic Age born at 5:29:45 a.m. on July 16, 1945. At that moment the world changed forever, and only fools believe that we have outlived the repercussions and implications. Pundits today ask the question, what would King think of things if he were alive today? It is an empty question, however, because he is not. He is not because he was the victim of a hateful, violent, and destructive mentality that has only grown exponentially since the human mind conceived the means by which to destroy itself. In this respect we are all boomers, and I can only hope that it will be the succeeding generations that piece back together that which for the present seems irreparably shattered.