More on the Greatest Generation

Maybe we're all just nostalgic, yearning for the past, a sense of security, or just a simpler time.

I have to say I was a bit taken aback by the reaction to my recent blog and Monday's column saluting my parents and "The Greatest Generation."

It generated more comments and reactions than anything I've written in a long time.

I don't like to think of myself as clinging to the past, but there is no doubt that I yearn for the much simpler life I enjoyed as a kid.

This has nothing to do with growing up, getting married, starting a career, having kids.

Real, serious commitments and responsibilities.

This has more to do with how we lived, how we dealt with each other, both as families and communities.

What we placed our priorities on, and the effect that has had on us as individuals and a society.

The reason we dwell on it, I believe, has to do with the fact that I don't think we can ever go back.

As I wrote on Monday, it was a different time, a different world.

For instance, do you realize that our children will never know the glory of a world without cell phones?

Think about what that means, and the ramifications it has for us, both as individuals and as a society.

It is now the first - and last thing - I do every day. Check my email. It rarely leaves my possession. I get slightly panicky on the rare occasion when I leave the house and realize I don't have my phone with me.

We have a fixation on being "plugged in."

As a member of the media I feed that desire. Yes, it's a two-edged sword.

I am saddened that my kids never had the opportunity to grow up in the kind of world I did. They have no conception of a world where, if you wanted to change the channel on the TV, you actually had to get up, walk over to the TV, and change the dial.

Don't laugh. It happens to be my opinion that the TV remote control might just be represent the single biggest technological change ever confronted by our society.

It fundamentally changed the way we live. For instance, it turned the advertising world on its head. TV was a captive audience. Why do you think local news was such a big deal. Because the most popular newscasts delivered that audience to the network news that followed, because people simply did not have the desire to get up and change the channel. You were forced to look at - or at least sit through - the commercials. Now a commercial usually is greeted by reaching for the clicker and seeing what else is available.

The other dominant thought I've had since the reaction started pouring in was that we can never go back. No one is going to give up their phones. We're not going to change the pace at which we live, our frenetic, 24/7 "connected" lifestyles.

That's why I was so impressed by one comment left on Facebook about my column. A reader reminded that while our parents may have indeed been what we refer to as The Greatest Generation, "We are the greatest generation to the younger ones now. We must teach them about the good old days. There's some food for thought."

I've always tried to do that with my kids. Much to their disdain at times. We are all products of the past. While we live in the present, we need to impress that sense of tradition and values with those who will become the next Greatest Generation.