A few years back I was part of a 3 day focus group funded by Rockefeller Brothers.  There was about 30 of us from around the USA.  We were at one of the Rockefeller Compounds near (*?).  Yes, it was incongruous but reminded us also of how philanthropy is an inter-generational thing.  Each morning or afternoon we were given a question to discuss.  One of the questions was how will we fund social movements in the future.  The guy next to me motioned me to look in back of us.  The entire wall was a Picasso Painting.  "No problem, Dude just roll it up and take it with us."

Then there was a question about inter-generational communication, in effect passing the torch from the 60s to the X's or Y's or whatever the prevalent younger attendees were.  A Bob Marley look alike from the Bronx candidly said, "well I'll tell you a problem.  You 60s people have to get out of the way and make room for us."  He went on to explain how there was a kind of glass ceiling.  Since boomers had started so many of the grassroots organizations and were living longer and refused to retire there was no room at the top.  We went on to discuss "founder's syndrome" and some other maladies.  I've thought often about this exchange.  And I agree with his basic premises.  But, I have often also thought about how we are so lacking in ritual in our society that all we can imagine is, "get out of the way and make room for us."

Tell you what.  We'll get out of the way as soon as you can tell us what to do in our Golden years.  We get the basic formula.  There ain't enough room at the top. But, maybe wrong metaphor.  How about instead there are all these guys and gals--that there are a lot of us remember we are the boomers--and we're all near the tape at the end of our long distance marathon.  And to quote the Grateful Dead, what a long strange trip its been. And at the end of the marathon there are all these new digital devices.  All previous generations had was a staff or head dress.  Instead today we have Iphone, Ipads, twitters and blogs.  I don't know what Jobs had in mind by calling everything "I" this and that but it reminds me of the progression someone noted about popular magazines that went from "Life" to "People," to "Us." What's next?  Just a cover with a mirror and the title "me."

In the good old days...OK here goes the old fart ways of talking.  But in my early community organizing days information scarcity and the difficulty of finding people working on issues with your particular angle was more difficult.  Scarcity drove us to seek each other and when we did it was a discovery like explorers finding islands in the "new world."  We created "people to people" indexes.  We hosted gatherings. We knew who had copy machines and wats lines (ways to actually phone people long distance!)  There were troubadours and carriers who traversed the I-5 corridors (and I'm sure other highways) carrying  fugitive documents (rare documents published in obscure or underground press) and video tapes of events from cultural epi-centers, to the outposts.  For the West coast at least during the Camelot and post Camelot period, the epi-center was the Bay Area.  It was the only bona fide "city."  If you wanted to be on the cutting edge you relied on these carriers in their VW vans or gatherings.  Yes, boys and girls, that's right there was no internet, no Facebook.  Can you imagine the hardship!   And some of us called ourselves "networkers."  We consciously tried to connect people to people and people with information as a way of lubricating social change.  I suppose us talking about such things is like having your grandmother talk about walking 5 miles to school in a blizzard.    Of course historians might be interested in some of these details but what about the everyday organizer or digital native?  Is it important to know?  Can't we just move forward? 

But a couple of things to consider. 

First imagine it's like 20-40 years from now and you're talking about something called Google or Facebook and people are saying to you that's quaint while they look at you through a holographic composition of a group's mind half way around the world.  The holographic-group mind seems more real than you.  Google is now a psycho-topical-action-simulcast of actions that tells you the next step to take to perform the most effective social action with the least expenditure of effort and maximum gain.  I don't know your guess is as good as mine. 

One point is that everything you take for granted and feel is state of the art won't be then.  And of course with climate change you might also be doing all this in vacuum tubes hundreds of feet below sea level. So maybe one point of the ancient ones telling stories is that it should be fun and interesting.  Its up to us to tell the stories, its up to you to translate it into twitter, blog or facebook realities.

But the best stories also can rely important information.  When I was in the Amazon headwaters I was told about songs that were taught to small children that were easy to memorize.  The stories contained useful information.  I don't remember the exact text but one told the story of a tree that at a time of year had bright purple flowers and the tree was shaped like a old man with a walking stick.  It was important because a symbiotic plant that could found at the base was useful.  It reduced the amount of water you needed.  Now there is useful information being passed on.  So how do we tell our stories so the useful parts are passed on.  Its up to us to create the stories and up to you to listen.

Its also scary to be near the finishing line.  We suspect that as soon as we pass it there is a cliff we drop off of, but its shrouded in fog.  Our parents and grandparents have almost all already sauntered over the cliff or maybe like Thelma and Louise just pushed the gas peddle down and flew and felt like eagles for a minute. 

    But can you imagine what its like to be running (ha!) well some of us still may be running but others are in super-turbo wheelchairs, Segways or golf carts, some of us are wearing tie-died depends, and while we started out like shinny grapes like you we mostly now look like raisons.

So what exactly do you want us to do.  Just fly over the edge so you can have the track and field all to yourself?  Are you afraid we will bore you to death with war stories about what it was like to organize when there wasn't an Internet?

One thing you might trying  doing is reading up on some traditional cultures and see what happens when elders in those communities reached the final quarter mile.  For the most part they didn’t or don't just shove them in a pit.  Inter-generational rituals.  Do you know any where you live?  Probably not.  The best I've seen is respect, like getting up to give your seat on a bus and awards. That is appreciated.  But it doesn't get to the heart of it.

Let's say you just had this great week away. It could be all your best buddies or getting back together with the "girls that just wanted to have fun.  Go Cindy..." And what a week it was.  laughing until your jaw hurt.  Heartfelt crying.  Well, I mean for the women.  Who knows maybe your guy group took some Robert Bly workshop and you hugged.  You can still, years later, remember that first frosty cold beer.  And Peter, or whoever, had once again scored the perfect place.  The ocean just visible past a sand dune.  And the gange.  Wow good stuff.  A mix of high octane THC and shavings off an ancient angelica root and the slight sting of nettle leaf.  Well whatever.  And you tossed the Frisbee around.  Leaping and landing in ways that would put us in the emergency room. 

Then the week is over and you have to return to your everyday life.  But, there's no last breakfast or brunch.  Just nothing.  Everyone just walks out the door and disappears.  Maybe you're the last one, left there filling the dish washer, separating the recyclables. And nobody blogs or twitters about it afterwards.  And no one at home asks you about what you did.  At work the guy in the cubicle next to you didn't realize you had been gone.  Nursing your first cup of coffee the phone rings and someone starts up as though you were in the middle or even the end of a conversation.  " So OK then I'll do this and that and don't forget the deadline is...so get on it...." Its like the week never happened.  That's kind of the way it feels when we're just asked, politely and with respect for the most part, to just get out of the way.

In the beginning my friends received "most promising" or "new leader" awards.  You know you are getting old when instead they are receiving lifetime achievement awards.  It parallels the track of the answer to "how you doing?"  In your twenties the pat answer is about how long your morning jog is up to, or grades received or scores (interpret that as you like), grants, job placement or salary increases and new positions; then its about how little Michael or Emily are doing, but eventually its about how your knees or hips are holding up, the latest surgery.  The as my mom noted, just wait until its more like if someone hasn't seen you a while they are surprised to see you are still kicking.  Either that or they just list who died, or who is still left standing.

The awards and award dinners and reverent comments are all appreciated, but there's just got to be more to this generational dialogue.  Here's the baton, keep on rocking in the free world is part of it.  Its moving to see Pearl jam and Neil Young jamming that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTTsyk-pyd8).  But, there's still something more to it.  Innovation, real change instead of circular repeats of problems and solutions come about when cultures clash and then jam and something new comes out of the box.  And I suspect that is the case with the boomers, as we drop off the edge there is something more to be said and done, a ritual that will help us with our fear of dropping off the cliff into the abyss, and you to finding your place in the never ending story of social justice and planetary survival, and creative enterprises. So let's create it.  Its like Catherine Mary Bateson has illustrated in many ways, we have lost ritual in modern and postmodern worlds so we have to create new ones:  Improvisation.