Bouncing Baby Boomers

Come to think of it, it is a great compliment to babies that despite the frequency of their appearance they retain their popularity. The Class of ’55 is expected to run well over 4 million in the United States alone. Babies are strictly wonderful. If you disagree, look at the faces of the adults during viewing time in the nursery of the Crawford W. Long Memorial Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia. There isn’t a sour expression in the lot, but there is awe, joy, wonderment, thoughtfulness and an over-all spirit of welcome. So, a toast in homogenized milk to the Class of ’55 — the inheritors of 6000 years of recorded human history with all its mistakes and triumphs; sixty centuries which encompass wars and philanthropy, soaring ideals and thermonuclear “devices,” love and cruelty, millions of daily kindnesses and intercontinental missiles, of patriotism and treason and flying saucers. Recommended reading for you young people (when you get around to it): Alice in Wonderland.

-“Citizens of the 21^st Century,” Face of America, July 16, 1955

Photograph by Frank Ross