THE

DECADES DILEMMA

A columnist can't help

getting a bit puffed up when she discovers that she had

anticipated a new-century quandary years before it

occurred.

With minimal editing, I

present again for your consideration a piece published in

the summer of 1993, and urge you to put some thought to

its question.

Folks, we have a dilemma

here. We are facing a far more serious

"Whatizit" than that inane blue squirt that is

supposed to represent Atlanta's Olympics. Depressing as

that thing is, we're stuck with it for only four years at

the most. [Didn't that prophecy come mercifully true?]

The enigma I'm concerned

about will be with us for decades. And that's it:

Decades. What are we going to call the first ten years of

the 21st century? Each decade takes on characteristics

that will evermore be linked with that period in our

history, like it or not.

Ask anyone over 60 or so

about the 1930s. Even people who don't clearly remember

the Depression years were marked indelibly by parents who

made do and scrimped and sacrificed just to get by.

What image does each decade

conjure? The answer varies, I suppose, according to who

you are and how old you are. I took a brief and

absolutely unscientific survey of friends and relatives

in their own fourth and fifth decades. What pops into

your mind when you think of the `20s?, I asked. Flappers,

they said. The Charleston, prohibition, Harlem at its

best - "The Roaring `20s."

The `30s? The Depression,

FDR, and a characteristic style of clothes. And the `40s?

World War II, and the rebuilding of lives in its wake.

Women in the work force and shorter skirts, said my

daughter, a 30-year-old professional. Victory Bonds, said

her father.

Consider the `60s: A time

of radically changed priorities, the coming of age for

most of today's movers and shakers. The Kennedy era,

flower children, civil rights, Vietnam, protests.

"Make love, not war," murmured a friend with a

faraway look in her eyes. Me, I was too busy changing

diapers to worry about changing the world.

My coming-of-age decade was

the `50s, the one now labeled by some sociologists the

"Me-first" years. This was Korea, the war we

try to forget, and a period that many feel defined

American "family values," whatever that means.

My daughter construed "Leave it to Beaver" and

"Ozzie and Harriet" as propaganda to get women

back in the home. Same daughter tagged the `70s as her

own coming-of-age decade. ("I want my money

back!" she wailed.) Others called it the

"nothing" decade, and mentioned disco.

The `80s will forever be

"the Reagan years," a period of national

embarrassment for many. "Get what you can,

characterized by Nancy Reagan," said one of my

respondents. I am among those who believe America's

international pre-eminence withered away in the vacuum of

leadership and morality that beset the `80s. [Little did

we know then...]

Middle-aged folks can

easily remember people talking about the "Gay

`90s," meaning the 1890s. If this century's last

decade goes down as "gay," I'm afraid it will

have nothing to do with light-hearted frivolity. No one

knows where this one [the 1990s] is going yet, my friends

concluded. It will be a decade of changes, especially

where the economy is concerned. "Old solutions no

longer apply."

What did they call the

years between 1900 and 1910? I'm not sure I ever heard

reference to the first decade of [the 20th] century, and

I doubt if the second one was called "the

teens." The word "aught" was in vogue

early in [the 20th] century - but did our

grandparents call those years "the aughts"? The

word is archaic today; I can't imagine using it in the

next century.

"Styles of the

Aughts"? Naah. Doesn't work. Besides, it's a

non-word that my Webster's says resulted from a faulty

separation of "a naught," meaning

"nothing."

My elders referred to

"the turn of the century." Perhaps that covered

the first few years of the 20th. But I seldom hear it

used today to indicate the immediate future. (Some trivia

here: Until about 1955, the British meant something quite

different when they said "turn of the century."

According to journalist Bill Bryson, the phrase referred

to midcentury, when the first half turns into the second

half.)

When our grandparents said,

"the 1900s," did they mean the first decade or

the whole century? "Back in oh-four" sounds

right, even though it isn't. Should be

"zero-four" - "oh" is a letter.

Someone suggested that, the zeroes. "Songs of the

Zeroes" on a book of pop tunes? "The car of the

Zeroes." Lacks something. Lacks anything.

Time's flying, and we have

to get a handle on it. Reporters, historians, fashion

analysts, the nostalgic - we all need a way to refer

to a decade which will inevitably take its place

alongside the others. For better or for worse. [Hmmm.]

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