Most of the sources I checked define the "Boomers" (short for "baby boomers") as anyone born in America between the years 1944-1964. That would make me a boomer.Here is an excellent source of information on the subject of generational names.
As a matter of fact, most, if not all of the kids I grew up with would have told you that the baby boom generation was our parents, not us. My maternal grandfather came home from WW2 and almost immediately sired my mother, Karin, who was born in 1945. As for my paternal grandmother, Gertrude, she came from a line of Polish and European immigrants, along with my paternal grandfather, who was a skilled tradesman from a long Irish-European ancestry. They had my father Lawrence in 1943.
The first political thing I can remember from my early childhood was seeing some kids wearing "Impeach Nixon" buttons on their coats and backpacks. My first grade teacher almost got fired for telling us kids we were going to die in Vietnam one day. Other than that, I wasn't much aware of politics, or at least they were very low resolution for me. Disco was all the rage, but there were kids who got together and had "I hate disco parties", where the kids would throw disco records into the fire while getting sh*faced. If you did not like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, you were uncool. Period. I was uncool, I hated heavy metal, and thought classical music was the best. But, so did the other kids in the band, first, the elementary school band, then the high school marching and concert bands. Me, and many of my peers, were busy making music, competing with each other, and collaborating with each other from time to time. We had no time for politics. Again, that was our parents. Our parents were political; they went out and voted, my step-dad joined the volunteer fire department; all I ever did was work around the house and yard, and come up with ways to make money for myself. I went door-to-door in my neighborhood offering to cut lawns and rake leaves, and wound up with 4 lawns: 40 bucks a week. My parents and their friends were talking about inflation and the alleged "energy crisis", but I felt like a millionaire with my 40 bucks a week (in the winter, yes, I shoveled snow), and if you had asked me about the energy crisis, or soaring inflation, I would have scratched my head. I was a well-stocked up kid. I even made moonshine in my closet.
So I guess I'm technically a boomer-I'm 57 ancient years old; I can remember when people were free to smoke tobacco in grocery stores, city buses, and entertainment venues. If you and I ever meet in New Orleans, I could give you a killer historical tour of this vast, enormous city on the banks of the Mississippi. But otherwise, I remember what prosperity looks and feels like. My parents worked hard, both of them, and taught me the value of work, and of money saved.
