Generations

Generation gaps are evident everywhere. For example, social media – it’s either your lifeline or you can’t figure it out for the life of you. In my marriage generation gaps come in the form of a Doobie Brothers concert where my husband is singing along and I barely know a couple songs. But I feel like now that we’ve been there my karma is aligned with the world again. See, at my wedding shower my loving maid of honor had this fun game for everyone to play. She had asked Pat a series of questions, gathered his responses and then asked me the same questions in front of all the important women in my life. For most of the game I was doing pretty well. Then it came to Pat’s favorite band. I quickly replied Metallica, quite proud of myself. By this time the guy had seen them at least four or five times. “Eh - the Doobie Brothers” she replied and then all of us youngsters looked at each other in question. Who the heck are the Doobie Brothers? I’ve felt like just a minor bit of a failure as a wife since then. So imagine my surprise when purchasing tickets to Larry the Cable Guy I learn the Doobie Brothers will be in San Antonio the first night of my conference. Brilliant! I have to fess up that I knew more than a couple songs, although none well enough to sing along. The rest of the crowd, however, were diehard fans. This was a good show – the band loves to rock and the fans follow suit. Anyone can appreciate that. For a Wednesday night the people of San Antonio were out to party and the people watching was great. I feel like there was an extra energy in the air watching the show in the Lone Star state since they reference Texas and San Antonio several times in their songs. A lady right in front of us was so moved by the music she got up to sing and dance like a member of a southern Baptist gospel choir. I love passion like that. There was a guy five rows in front of us who had to be pushing 80 but he was up dancing and singing, waving his hands in the air. The demographics of the crowd varied greatly. I wasn’t the youngest but I’d bet I was in the bottom 10 percent. The crowd even tried to be young and hip by waving their cell phones in the air instead of a lighter – although some obviously failed to recognize the point that the screen must be lit up. The show was more fun than I expected and I gotta love a band with two drummers, two full drum sets and a bass player named Skylark who wears a sleeveless shirt and plays a lit up bass. I left with a happy, singing husband and a fully restored karma.

Today was the first day of my Boston College Corporate Social Responsibility class. These things always start out the same – a morning of relief, bonding and commiserating. Engineers, accountants and marketing types typically have the luxury of working with a group of people with whom they can brainstorm, commiserate and work side by side. In the CSR world we more typically work alone in a company. If you’re lucky you’ve got a team of three to five. So the first parts of each of these conferences are full of “God it’s so nice to talk to someone who gets what I’m dealing with!” And that’s a good feeling.

Yesterday we toured all the Spanish missions around San Antonio. It was a great history lesson and those still intact are quite stunning. If nothing else, I now know where the term “mission style furniture” comes from. We ended with a tour of the Alamo. I liken this experience to visiting Elvis’ Graceland – it’s not exactly as grand as you expect it will be. However, the Texan pride for the Alamo is bigger than life itself, even to this day. Remember the Alamo!