Respect

Recently a young reporter for the Miami Herald heard that I was producing a documentary on Homestead, Florida, “The Town that Wouldn’t Die,” and decided I was worth a feature story since she covered that area and was eager and conscientious. Her name was Etienne Etheart. She was of Haitian extraction and asked the right questions, among them, “Why Homestead?” The answer was simple. It had to do with “true grit,” the capacity to get off the canvas a la Rocky Balboa and beat hell out of your opponent. Homestead and its sister city, Florida City, had endured Hurricane Andrew, which literally devastated the region. They had withstood other great storms, droughts, floods, depressions, and government regulations which hurt farming interests in this region.

After the interview I asked her some questions. Since I have five daughters, I am deeply interested in how women prevail in this changing workplace. She was candid and we enjoyed each other on a pleasant Florida autumn afternoon.

The talk got around to family and she paused and looked out at the surf before answering. “ My mother is going to return to Haiti and build a home.” I was surprised and said so because that benighted country is ever in the throes of poverty, terrible government, and self-serving politicians. Etienne agreed, then made a tragic comment about the United States. “My mother says she is returning because in this country they do not respect age.”

Mama was on the mark. Having traveled through other societies, the one thing you realized in most of them is that being older was to be respected because you had experienced much and perhaps had even learned a little, and could pass it on to your children. Indeed vast and teeming China venerates its older people, and ancestors are worshipped in much of Asia. Etienne turned the tables and asked, “Why is this so? Why do Americans tend to cast off older people, want them to somehow disappear?” As I said, she asked decent questions. The conversation took place in a little seaside restaurant in Hollywood, Florida, about fifteen miles north of Miami Beach and part of the answer may lie on “The Beach.”.

I had just completed a documentary entitled “Miami Beach, Only in America,” which had been well received. During the shooting we arrived at pre-dawn for a series of shots which expressed the beauty and serenity of “ The Beach.” The well known News Cafe was mobbed with kids everywhere, some flying high on various drugs, many puffing on enormous cigars, all still revved up despite the fact that it was four A.M. I was struck by the scene and thought how much of being young in this country is total self-absorption, living for the moment, doing what your peers deem absolutely necessary, being cool, dressing a certain way, being intolerant of those less cool or those who marched to a different drummer.

The money spent during these years is staggering and advertisers know it. Why do you think the “Pepsi Generation” was in vogue some time ago? George Bernard Shaw said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” Perhaps, but the American bent on materialism/hedonism while young is, as Dreiser put it, “An American Tragedy.”

It is so easy to put down youth and its extravagances, but we’ve jumped the turnstile on responsibility, the sense that we owe something to others, to our society and time. The well nigh frantic decades through which we’ve recently passed, the “If it feels good do it,” the “Gimmme, gimme, gimme, me, me, me, I,I,I , now, now, now” epoch has sapped part of our national character, which I think is still forming.

Instant gratification is part of infancy and Freud was right when he talked in terms of “His majesty, the baby.” Peter Jennings can speak of, and extol, a generation of Americans who struggled, worked hard, fought a great war and came together to create a better and more prosperous nation. Some of the traditional values seemed to have been dumped in the foundations for the two-car garage in the exploding suburbs.

Once, years ago, while writing a book, I sat in a snowy, beautiful old inn in the Poconos. The owner, a kindly man, came through the deserted dining room and started talking about the halcyon days of the region, when poppa joined momma and the kids for the weekends, when the family car was the only one, when people had more faith and less sophistication. He was a religious fundamentalist, very removed from my posture, very conservative in his views, intelligent and curious as to where we had gone wrong. Our answers were different, but I bet him that there were areas where we would be in solid agreement. He grudgingly agreed that there should be spending caps on political campaigns, but without governmental interference, concurred totally that special interests now ran the country, and was one hundred percent behind the idea that we must start teaching courses on ethics and civics in our schools since these lessons had to come from somewhere.

Perhaps this social revolution started when Johnny marched off to war in the early forties, when women manned the factories, became an enormous work force and the GI Bill was introduced. After a terrible depression and a great war, consumerism was on the rise. The bright and wonderful future had one requirement, you had to have money. Everyone, including young mothers, found themselves in the workplace in order to afford the second car and perhaps one for junior at sixteen and Sally when she came of age, a summer vacation or second home, color TV and a million zillion new appliances. The good life was guaranteed if you had all of the above.

Of course the divorce rate did go up. There was rampant dissent among our youth, experimenting with drugs which could make “Dobbin” run the Preakness, and a drop in attendance in establishment churches. “I feel that I am a spiritual person, but can’t handle organized religion,” became the response. Into this interesting mix add the many movements to bring rights to special groups long denied them, and you have a society which doesn’t march to a different drummer, it reels.

My daughters are doing a good job with the unbelievable pressures on them as mothers and professionals. They are bright, sometimes confused, but seemingly strong enough to play the game and sometimes prevail. They love their kids, raise them well and look to the future.

They look for answers, frequently don’t find them, but they persevere.