Maybe it is just my age that has me cranky over the blog today in the Huffington Post that goes all tut, tut over the generation now hanging at the mall and tsk-tsk over those of us who came before, but I'm having one heck of a time working up a good 'poor, little darlings' over the thought that someone actually considers them to be the, "the first generation I know that doesn't embrace a future more golden than that of the previous generation."

Golden futures, my foot!

'Duck and cover' practice was a regularly scheduled activity in classrooms when I was a kid, and although no one really believed that ducking under our desks, putting our forearms over the back of our necks and covering our eyes was going to allow us to survive a nuclear holocaust, most were pretty darned sure one was imminent.

Yep, that was a mighty 'golden' atmosphere for children all right.

A bit later, my generation was fed lie after lie and used as fodder for a useless war in Southeast Asia, and I don't know anyone I was in school with who didn't lose someone they loved in the jungles of Vietnam.

More gold, heh? And remind me again, please, who was promising us what.

Those older than us had yearly polio epidemics, cholera outbreaks and WWll with all its death, destruction and hardship to live through ... and that nasty evil that needed dealing with.

Not to mention, of course, that up until recently there were no personal computers or Internet access, no cell phones ... not even the kind that could only make phone calls ... no video games. If people wanted to see a movie, we had to go to a theater or wait until it came out on TV, and then had to watch it as it aired no matter how many other things we might have liked to do at that specific time.

So, once not all that long ago there existed a world that was constantly on the verge of being blown to bits ... completely, by the way, not just a section of it ... with crooked politicians, deadly wars, crime, corporate greed (Do the name "Love Canal", ring a bell?), and oh-so-much more.

And the people that lived in that world fought the good wars and ended the bad ones, battled for civil rights and won them, and forced the EPA into existence, to name just a few hard fought accomplishments.

This may come as news, but being handed a grand and easy life on a plate is actually not what generations previous enjoyed, and I suppose I can admit that possibly because there were few promises made the future actually did seem less threatening.

Yes, I'll say that this generation is missing out on something those coming before did have: a grip.

Would anyone spending time thinking that the next generation is being cheated out of all sorts of goodies because of the spoiled behavior of those in the past please get one? And while you're at it, could you ask some of the kids to step out of the mall for a while and step up?

I am fairly certain that the world they're inheriting would be a whole lot worse if many of us hadn't done exactly that when we were their age.