The Atomic Generation
Today, when my son was asking me which generation I belonged to, I looked it up to check, and found out that there was a "new" generation that I had not heard of before - Generation Jones. While the description Wikipedia gave was intriguing, I think we should be called the Atomic Generation.

We were technology pioneers who grew up in the Atomic Age and during the Cold War. We didn't know whether an an atomic bomb would be dropped on us and whether a nuclear winter was in our future - or the lack thereof. We dreamt of underground bomb shelters and "Duck and Cover" scenarios. In elementary school, we watched movies (not videos) of the atomic bomb tests and thought it was a normal thing. The futuristic images from the Jetsons were not what we envisioned. Our perceived future was more like Mad Max where destruction and desolation lie ahead. And that may have been why punk music was so popular - when the Atomic Generation came of age and voiced ideas from the vacuum in which they lived. Teenage angst and loneliness. Abandonment and lack of acceptance. The first batch of latch-key kids.

We were, and still are, holding onto the tail of the Baby Boom Comet where all of the attention was taken away from us due to their sheer number, and we had to stand up and SHOUT - "Hey, we're here too! We're not invisible, and we matter!"