Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

The times, they have definitely changed

By Robert N. Jenkinsseniority editor
Published July 25, 2006

For the times,

they are a-changin' . . .

How much they were to change, we had no idea when Bob Dylan first released his anthem in 1964.

Lyndon Baines Johnson had started ratcheting up the war that would tear apart America. Too late, he realized what he had committed us to. He left the most important office in the world rather than try to extricate a half-million servicemen and women and perhaps start the nation healing.

Come mothers and fathers all over the land

And don't criticize what you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly aging

Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand

For the times they are a-changin'.

LBJ's successor, Richard M. Nixon, was positively Shakespearean in his scope as an antihero. As they were revealed, his Machiavellian actions in the White House alienated innumerable voters among his Silent Majority. A nation rent by the war was now wondering about trusting its government.

Nixon's handpicked vice president, Gerald R. Ford, told America in his first speech as president, "Our long national nightmare is over."

But it wasn't.

The divisions created by war and Watergate, by assassinations and protests over the lack of equality, had fractured America. It was less a loss of innocence than a questioning of the truisms that had kept us largely satisfied with life.

During those dreadful dozen or so years, teenagers and recent college grads didn't merely turn away from values their elders embraced, they fled from tradition.

They chose to lead those protest marches, to draw attention at political conventions, to abandon the dream of upward mobility.

While the idealistic young people hoped for reform and equality, too many of them adopted the phrase "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" as a way of life. Still others chose to just "drop out" without the hedonistic accessorizing.

For the sake of convenience, the establishment labeled this counterculture population "hippies." Some of them proudly called themselves "freaks."

And it is these nontraditionalists whom we visit in this issue of Seniority. By now, most of them could be grandparents, could have second mortgages, could even be worrying about Medicare's Part D doughnut.

Times staff writer Lane DeGregory profiles a number of bay area residents who say they used to be hippies but now are not. At least, not most of the time.

And that guy at the top of this column? That's your editor in 1972, when he was part of the middle class as national news editor of the St. Petersburg Times.

The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast

The slow one will later be fast

And the present now will soon be the past

The order is rapidly fading

The first one now will later be last

For the times, they are a-changin'.

Changing, too, is Seniority, as we promised it would.

Beginning with this issue, we have new columnists to better advise us on our finances, our legal needs, our medical concerns.

Lest you worry that we're trending too young, we've added a new columnist who is in his eighth decade and works on a typewriter, not a computer.

Here are the new voices in Seniority:

Scott Burns writes the column on financial advice, which isn't what he thought he'd be doing when he graduated from MIT with a degree in humanities and biology and then went on to study writing with Archibald MacLeish at Harvard.

Burns began writing a column of business advice at the Boston Herald in 1977, became its financial editor, and then became a business columnist at the Dallas Morning News. He still writes for that paper, and for publications as varied as Harper's Bazaar and Playboy.

Dr. David Lipschitz holds both a Ph.D. and M.D. and is the director of both the department of geriatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, in Little Rock, Ark. The institute staff includes 27 medical doctors, six of whom also have Ph.D.s, as do 37 other institute employees.

Dr. David, as he prefers to be known, hosted an award-winning 26-part TV series on aging that has been shown on numerous PBS stations. He also is author of the book Breaking the Rules of Aging. He says, "It is never too late or too early to pay attention to your health."

With Dr. David joining Seniority's contributors, Tom Valeo's column, Body of Information, moves to the Times' page of health news, Pulse, starting today. He will write monthly for Pulse, which appears on Page 3E in the Floridian section on Tuesdays.

The issue of legal matters affecting older people grows more complex. Interpreting the topic will be Jan Warner and Jan Collins.

Warner is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and has been practicing law for more than 30 years. Collins is editor of the Business and Economic Review, published by the University of South Carolina, and is also a special correspondent for the Economist magazine.

Jim Aylward joins our columnists offering reflections on the past and the present. Readers of some of our regional editions may recognize Jim, a New Port Richey resident, as a guest columnist.

When he suggested taking on a larger role, this former United Features columnist and New York City broadcaster offered topics, he said, on the " '30s and '40s before TV and a piece about 1953 Korea. I remember it all too well. I also remember a lot of other stuff, a lot of different lives and times."

Jim will be relating some of that on a regular basis in Seniority. He joins columnists Sheila Stoll and Frank Kaiser, whose columns will now alternate month by month.

Because most of us yearn to travel, we will have a monthly column by Jay Clarke, for more than 30 years the travel editor of the Miami Herald. I first met Jay in my former job as Times travel editor and quickly learned he was one of the most knowledgeable writers in the business. Jay will join Seniority next month; today you can learn why some Floridians choose to travel by - or even live in - an RV.

Robert N. Jenkins can be reached at 727 893-8496 or jenkins@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 24, 2006, 21:28:32]