There is no such thing as a Generation Z. I learned that at a wedding. 

Gen Z is supposedly made up of lazy, job-hopping work shirkers who feel entitled to things they have not earned, which no doubt does happen. 

But as I looked around at other wedding guests my age, I recollected that we Baby Boomers did our share of shirking work, and back when we had jobs, we’d hop from one to another when the price was right. 

In reality, we were just like the generations that a lot of us now put down. Of course, we got put down by the Greatest Generation,who called us a bunch of long-haired sissy boys who were soft on Communism and couldn’t win a simple little war.  

They probably couldn’t milk cows or make calico dresses well enough to suit their parents, either. 

This is what creates an artificial Generation Gap. We push each other apart because we don’t like to be reminded that we’re not them anymore, and they don’t want to face the realization that some day they will be us. 

Ironically, this is best demonstrated at an event that brings the generations together – the wedding.  

Young people have to dress like from some time when men wore cummerbunds and women had to have other women carry the back ends of their dresses for them. This is all punitive, and we make them do it or we won’t pay for the wedding. 

To get us back, each new generation comes up with music that is intended to keep old people off the dance floor.  When the band fired up the Charleston in the 1920s, all those Spanish-American War veterans went back to their seats and watched. Mission accomplished. The repression of the elderly dancer is the only explanation for the Jitterbug or the Twist.  

Can you imagine Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower doing the Bunny Hop? Neither could the kids of that day, which is why they came up with it. 

You can’t really believe my generation enjoyed the Frug, the Pony or the Jerk. Those were the inventions of nimble youngsters who are good-looking enough to get away with anything and think they will be young and good-looking forever. 

All young people are like that. They need to get over it, and we can help. 

It is the duty of some of us old people to get out there and show them what they are going to look like some day. I’m not talking about the early reception, Mother-Son, Daddy-Daughter, all couples shuffles, either.  

What is called for is something like a geriatric mosh pit, with all of us wobbling around on our worn-out original equipment and various replacement parts, barely able to hear the music let alone do anything related to it. That would put some whippersnappers in their places. 

We had some promise at this last reception, but unfortunately, as the pace of the music picked up, that dignity and self-respect stuff started to set in and most of my kind wandered back to their tables.  

I didn’t.  

I was out there for the duration, bobbing, weaving, creaking and sweating, often without a partner, sometimes in groups of six or 13, and at least once leading a Conga line doing a Bunny Hop.  

That brings us to one of the real differences between previous generations and the young people of today. These kids all have phones with recording functions. 

And it leaves me wondering how much of my 401(k) it will take to buy all those videos before they hit You Tube or TikTok – whatever that is.