((Brian’s note:  Cary recently retired as “The Iowa Traveler” after a 25 year run at CBS2 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  We’ve worked together and are both board members of the Iowa Broadcast News Association.  Cary won the IBNA’s highest honor, the Jack Shelley Award, in 2006 for career achievement.  I asked him to send something our way.))

As a baby boomer, I feel like I’m living my parent’s life…in reverse. 

My folks were born in the 1920’s and grew up in the 1930’s when a nickel would go a long way, that is, IF you had a nickel which was hard to come by in hard times during the Great Depression. 

I can’t tell you how many times, when I was a kid and until the day he died at age 81, my dad would say: “I remember when you could fill a whole bag of groceries for five dollars.” or  “I remember when gas was ten cents a gallon.” or “My mom would send me to the store for a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk and I could keep the change from the fifty cents”. 

My dad went to war in 1942 at age 18 and saw Navy service in two fierce battles:  Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  My mom was a Rosie the Riveter at a St. Louis airplane plant and a mom to my older brother.   

When my dad came home from World War II he had a bunch of jobs from taxi driver to railroad worker as jobs were hard to find when the thousands of servicemen returned to the civilian work force. 

In 1948 they built the new Ford Motor Assembly Plant and he literally got in on the ground floor loading parts from railroad box cars.  Eventually he would work his way up from a blue collar to a white collar clerical job, a job which would become his career in middle management. 

I know there were ups and downs.  When he was still blue collar the union had a strike at the Ford plant and there were times when he wondered how he was going to feed his now two boys. 

But generally as the American economy became a dynamo in the 1950’s and 1960’s he benefited and climbed up the economic ladder.  This resulted in his buying his first car, his first house, moving to the suburbs and enjoying those Eisenhower and Kennedy years. 

And that was the America I was born in.  I’ve always said, I’ve never missed a meal. In my youth, things just seemed to get better all the time.  We always had tv, air conditioning, a nice car and plenty of food.  It truly seemed like the good life and when I watched “Leave It To Beaver”….I could almost see my own family…me and my brother and my mom and dad, although my mom didn’t wear pearls every day like Mrs. Cleaver. 

I went to war in the Navy…the Vietnam War…came home and began my broadcast career. 

I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining but remember the title of this piece is “Living My Parents Life in Reverse?”. 

When I was a kid, the price of Twinkies was ten cents.  Last time I checked, they’ve been about $1.19 and probably any second a $1.29.  Gas, yes I can remember 19 cents a gallon gas when I was in high school (1965). 

And although both my parents and I have seen increased prices of things, it sure has seemed like the prices have risen faster and higher lately.  For the first 11 years of my life a first class stamp cost 3 cents. In my teens…for five years…the price of a stamp stayed a nickel. 

And now it seems stamp prices increase almost yearly…and this week, comes another price jump. 

My dad retired with a pension and life long medical care thanks to those who fought for union benefits. 

I hope I’m not living my parent’s life in reverse.  I hope this current bad economy, some call a recession, doesn’t slide into a real depression.  I hope we’ve not living in an age of “constant war” for the United States. 

Whoever is elected President in November is going to have their work cut out for them.

God help them! God bless us.

((Brian's Note: Cary J. and I have known each other for more than 10 years now. He is a wise man and I greatly value his friendship. Feel free to leave a comment below or send an e-mail by clicking here.))