Generation gaps in memoir writing: Some things need more explaining
Haha. It happened. I’m now officially on the far side of the generation gap. I realized it playing a memory game with 20-yearold granddaughter Tessa Lawton and her mom, Alana Cortés. Teamed with Tessa, I had to give her the name of an actor that she would place on a spectrum between great or awful as a performer. The correct placement — which only I knew — was near the middle of the spectrum. I fought hard to think of an actor we would both know and that she would place correctly. I said John Wayne. She didn’t know who John Wayne was. When it was her turn to give clues, I couldn’t understand some of them. Wow.
I just celebrated my
85th birthday on Jan. 4, invisibly as usual, given the holiday smash. Others may dread their birthdays;
Laurel Cortes
I don’t have time to. But as I progress in age and need to bridge more generations, my memoir writing has morphed from plain storytelling to including cultural aspects that need explanations. These revelations are incredibly interesting to my family.
I grew up in Carlsbad. Eighty years ago, in 1944, when we, the Vermilyeas, moved into our home four blocks from the ocean in Carlsbad Village, the town’s population was 3,300. The city’s population is now over 174,000. My three brothers and I still own our home. Because it’s a family destination, this year I hosted three separate Christmas parties and one 40th anniversary celebration in our recent three-week stay.
I tell my family about the horrible siren that periodically went off a half block from our house during World War II. It was to ensure readiness if the Japanese bombed the corridor stretching from El Toro and Camp Pendleton marine bases to the Naval bases in San Diego Harbor and Coronado.
In WWII, soap factories were confiscated for munitions making, because glycerin can become nitroglycerin, a necessity for bomb-making. Each family saved bacon fat and other fats in gallon cans. We kids walked down the block to the grocery store and gave them to the butcher, who passed them on to government soap centers. For every gallon can, we received 4 cents and two red stamps. Because of our large family (10) we were regular donors and recipients. We needed every penny and stamp.
My mother was mum about her experience homesteading in a remote shack in Wyoming. At 12, the eldest of seven children, an honor student in Omaha, a classmate of Henry Fonda, and happy… until her Aunt Ursula, who married a Wyoming rancher, proposed that my grandma could bring five of her children out to homestead. They could prove the land (improve it) for three years, then Tante Sula’s husband would buy the property and grandma would have the money. Mom said only this: She was devastated to be removed from school.
I know that my mother resented the “ingrates” that ridiculed her generation for craving security above all else. After what they’d been through? Homesteading. Two World Wars — the first of which claimed the life of my father’s oldest brother (mustard gas poisoning in France, Spanish Flu in Iowa). A horrifying Depression, with lost bank accounts, hunger and cold. Food stamps and rationing in the ’40s. All that they wanted after World War II was peace and quiet — and respect for what they had lived through.
Then along came the Boomers. A generation that had grown up in relative serenity, many were stunned that they were expected to put their bodies on the line in a country they had never heard of. They had no gripe with the people of Vietnam, wherever that was…
In 1982, I was in a fun phyllo dough class in an Italian deli owner’s home. During our last meal, a young newlywed (early 20s) spoke excitedly. Her husband, a recent UCR PHD., had accepted a position at Indiana University. The great prices of real estate in Indiana prompted them to borrow money from their folks to purchase a large older home rather than rent. Her voice dropped. It was a “drag,” she said, “that they had to pay points, closing costs, property taxes and insurance.”
The woman next to me stood up. “I can’t listen to this anymore! Who are you to complain? You’ve done nothing to earn this house. My husband and I have been through hell, and we’re finally able to settle down. I’m 50 years old, and he’s 52, and we just bought our first home. I can’t listen to your whining about this at your age!” She burst into tears and left the house. The young woman likewise left the house in distress.
I know how lucky my generation has been. My granddaughter Holly Riley pays off a Honda that costs what I paid for my first nice home, $29,900. Is this generation closer in spirit to my parent’s generation than to any other? How will they write their memoirs? Will their children grow up to satirize them? Time will tell.
A UC Riverside retiree, Laurel Vermilyea Cortés writes about language, literature and cultural change.