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The Hurricane and Those Awful Millennials
Roadside couches – couches, couches, everywhere. Each is a piece of furniture someone long ago chose for its appearance and service. It was the comfort zone for a family cuddling for the movies, the study carrel of choice for students, home turf to the family dog, paid for on the installment plan, and now cast out. Soaked and sour, irredeemable, couches wait for disposal. After the memories, a thought remains – did anyone check under the cushions for coins?
One is aware of some unhappy GossipNet postings regarding Jasper-Newton Electric Cooperative. The posters should remove those unjust emotions from their hearts, their lips, their fingertips, and their telescreens. JNEC, as is its tradition, performed brilliantly in the recent crisis. JNEC purchases power from numerous sources because there is no power plant here. This electric power is shipped over different lines from different places, and a power line belonging to a third party in another state failed. You cannot distribute that which you do not have.
We enjoy electricity because of the work of many people, including those smart, tough buys who roll out in the middle of stormy nights to keep it going. Anyone who does not appreciate them just needs to disconnect the meter and live in a tent like a smelly old hippie.
I wish there were a power plant here. But if it were proposed, there would be a protest that it threatens rainbow field mice, cosmic toad frogs, the feng shui, or whatever. Ya can’t have it both ways. Electricity is nice. The air-conditioner, the water pump, the lights, and the kitchen can’t be powered by clamping jumper cables to an endangered species of vegetarian umpire bats.
Finally, about those awful millennials: one of the loudmouths on midday a.m. radio yakked from his air-conditioned studio far, far away about the poor conduct of millennials during the hurricane.
“Millennial” is predicated upon “millennium,” meaning a thousand years, which in its turn is predicated on the Latin work “mille,” meaning a thousand. Around 1980 someone anticipating the turn of the century referred to the children who would come of age in the year 2000 as millennials. The term carried no pejorative; it simply referred to an age group.
Millennial, a perfectly useful word, has been poisoned by the name-callers, the know-nothings who label people they don’t understand or like as “libtards,” “fascists,” “liberals,” “reactionaries,” “snowflakes,” and so many other noises that carry no meaning except within a closed loop of babbling ignorance.
“Millennial” is often used – that is, misused – as a negative stereotype for any young person who does something stupid. As with all stereotypes, it is inaccurate and unethical. To dismiss everyone born in, say, 1983 as a delicate flower calling for his smelling salts at the sight of a discarded banana peel is an ugliness in direct descent from historic slurs about Those People Who Are Not Exactly Like Me, Me, Me, and exploited to justify irrational fears.
Millennials came of age in 2000 (or 2001, if you are a math teacher). A millennial now is in early middle age, maybe a little younger, but definitely not a child or a teenager or even a twenty-something.
Millennials are our Army, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and reserve and guard units.
Millennials are our many law enforcement and emergency services.
Millennials are Louisiana’s famous Cajun Navy.
Those delicate, fragile millennials sure pulled a lot of people out of the water the last two weeks, patched a lot of people, fed a lot of people, sheltered a lot of people, cleaned a lot of houses for people, and kept civilization going.
Be thankful for millennials. Unlike the loudmouth on the radio, they are here for us.
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