The Roaring Twenties

The fads of the 1920s.  That was the topic I chose for a term paper my junior year in high school.  I thought my parents would finally talk about their youth.  They were in their 20s during that era, so I figured they had some firsthand knowledge if not experience.  Maybe they didn’t eat live goldfish or sit on top of flagpoles, but they were there.

Here’s what I would get as answers during my interviews.  “I don’t remember”, “We didn’t do any of that silly stuff”, “I don’t think I had a coonskin cap”, “I don’t know why they did that”, “I liked the music.”  In today’s terms those discussions could have been summed up with shrug and ‘it was what it was.’

My parents met in 1926 when he was 22 and she was 20 and married in 1928.  My dad played the drums in bands in speakeasies while they courted.  My mother taught in a one room school house and then worked as a comptometer operator.  There should have been stories.  I’m sure there were stories.  They just didn’t think their stories were important enough to share, even when persistently asked.  Even to help their daughter with a term paper.

So I changed courses from the frivolity of the decade to the harsh realities of the Great Depression.  Would they talk about that?  No. “We made out ok.”  Dad had started as a repairman with the phone company and had regular work.  At another time in high school, I tried to get them to talk about the 1940s and the war.  What about rationing, what did they do without?  Again, “we did ok.”

As I reflected on their continuous use of the phrases “it wasn’t like that for us” and “we did ok,” I came to believe that they felt some guilt because they didn’t have any extreme story to tell.  They were in the middle.  There was little to no documentation of any silliness or hardship.  An occasional ‘remember when…’ involved some prank that my father did – the typical locking people in or out of the outhouse.

If I think of my own roaring 20s, about coming of age in the 1960s, how would I answer the questions I posed to my parents?  It might be in the same manner.  I too was in the middle.  Yes, I marched for and against, but not in the forefront.  I have no mementos or pictures.  In some box there is probably proof of teased hair and a miniskirt, but the Peace and Smiley Face and the ‘If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem’ buttons are gone, the wine bottle candles are at the flea market, and pop music is  on channel 724 on the TV.

Our stories are important.  They tell how we were molded, of our reactions to the mundane and major experiences of life.  Stories put us at a place and time to validate our existence and our purpose.  They enable us to connect to one another. 

So, if I think about those in their 20s today and about the generation just born, whose trends and personal experiments with and feelings about those trends are documented and immediately shared, I think their children may find a term paper much easier.  “I don’t remember” and “It wasn’t like that for us” won’t be an option.

Marilyn

A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth. Instead of its bringing sadness and melancholy prospects of decay, it would give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world. 
...Maurice Chevalier