Nuggets of Wisdom
Monthly ColumnBy Daniel A Barnes
I lost my Grandma Barbara this last week. Grandma Barbara was the last member of the World War II generation in my family. I was blessed to develop meaningful relationships with all four of my grandparents. With them, I received nuggets of wisdom to absorb and take in, and this wisdom was oftentimes much easier to digest than that which came from my parents.
Grandma Barbara taught me to play canasta when I was 7. We spent hours and hours playing. My grandma, who was a little itsy-bitsy thing, just 4’10”, had an excruciatingly difficult childhood. She was born to an educated mother and an alcoholic father. Her father’s alcoholism trumped her mother’s family status and education. She was born in 1920 in Detroit and raised in a boarding house from age 7 to 17. She ended her childhood quite early when she met my Papa Jack when she was 15 and married two years later.
My grandma never tired of sharing with me about the times that followed. It was 1937. The Depression was still everywhere you looked. My Papa Jack went to engineering night school and worked during the day as a draftsman. My Grandma managed the household on the $15 a week that they brought home. For work, she’d pack a brown bag lunch for him and give him six cents to ride the streetcar to work.
Hard times remained for the next five years, until the U.S. was thrust into World War II. Then there was a new set of worries, but the economy picked up then as America built ships and planes to fight the Axis Powers. In that same year (1942), my Papa Jack landed his dream job, an engineering position with North American Aviation (later McDonnell Douglas). North American moved Papa Jack and Grandma Barbara out of snowy Detroit to California that summer. Then that fall my grandparents sold their car to buy a house, and for the next several years, Papa Jack took the streetcar to work again.
Those were hard times. Yet the nation thrived. Today we’re in the midst of a soggy economy and problems galore. Crushing debt burdens us, and other issues seem overwhelming. No one has any answers. And no politician can implement change over the special interest groups, not even a popular president with control of Congress.
Meanwhile, the outlook for investments is as soggy as I can remember. So this week, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking, “What would Grandma Barbara say?” And what I’ve decided that she would say something like this: “What are we complaining about? Let’s just put our nose down and get to work.” That was the spirit of this generation, which we are now losing. While few of us have the opportunity to ride streetcars to work, today’s economic challenges will turn into tomorrow’s opportunities.
Seventy years ago the world had no idea that the Axis would control the European continent just six months later. But with time and effort, the tragedies of that era turned into triumphs, as the industrial democracies vanquished the fascist dictatorships.
Today I’m thinking: It’s not the problems and dilemmas of today that matter, but the attitudes that we bring to them, that ultimately make all the difference. In the November 2009 column, I spoke of today’s kids and young adults; they are Generation Y, also known as the “Millennials” (born 1982-1999). My kids are a part of this group and they are just coming of age as we lose the last members of the World War II Generation.
I believe the Millennials are special. They acknowledge that they are inheriting a screwed up set of problems, and they accept it. Right now, they are perhaps not so “work-inclined” at the moment, either because of immaturity or a lack of opportunity. But let’s give them some time, and imbue them with our faith.
I believe the emerging hard economic times will do wonders to develop a sense of purpose and work ethic in the Millennials, who are coming of age in a time and place that is not so fundamentally different in nature than the era of my Grandma Barbara and Papa Jack. Perhaps I’m waxing optimistically, but for all my Grandma Barbara’s flaws, she passed on a few nuggets of gold:
- She accepted me for who I was
- She believed in me.
Her faith in me made a very big difference in my life. I have faith that the wisdom and cynicism of Generation X and the collegiality and team-building skills of Generation Y can be a terrific combination to tackle the challenges our society faces today. These kids inherit the spirit of what Tom Brokaw labeled “the Greatest Generation.”
I believe that if we don’t have the answers, we can inspire our kids and our leaders with a trust and faith that I learned from my Grandma Barbara: Accept the current situation and believe that we have the power to transform it.
Don’t you?