On June 29 I turned 80, one of those milestone years in a life should we be around that long. Family lore has it that I was born at approximately 9:30 p.m. Central War Time, the name given to year round daylight savings time in effect from Feb. 9, 1942, to Sept. 30, 1945.

My place of birth was St. Mary’s Hospital in my mother’s hometown of Milwaukee, Wis. At the time my father, a Marine Corps officer, was on Okinawa preparing for the invasion of Japan, the invasion that fortunately never was.

Turning 80 is nothing like turning 90 or 100,I suppose. But you realize that you have been occupying space on this planet for quite a while.

A few years ago, I learned the fact that by virtue of my June 29, 1945, birthdate I am not a member of the Baby Boomer Generation but rather a member of the Silent Generation made up of those who were born just prior to the Great Depression through the World War II years. We are the smallest generational group since the time when historians and pundits with too much time on their hands decided to divide American society into distinct groups. Actually, being a member of the small Silent Generation lends a certain air of exclusivity to membership in that generation something that being a Baby Boomer lacks. I sort of like that.

It should be noted the name Silent Generation was coined by TIME magazine in a 1951 essay highlighting our relative silence and cautious demeanor compared to earlier generations. I hasten to add that because I was one of the last of the Silent Generation my silence was compounded by the fact that I had not yet achieved the powers of intelligible speech when the Boomers first appeared although I could let out a nice howl when I was in need.

The Silent Generation’s key characteristics describe us as being dependable, straightforward, loyal, respectful of authority, seeing the world and events from a conservative point of view, understanding the value of hard work, and prioritizing stability and security. I suppose I was most of those things but then I like to think that most Americans are also.

The world has changed greatly since I was born.

Back in those days radio was still king, and families still depended on radio for news and entertainment. I remember that in the morning my mother listened regularly to Don McNeil’s Breakfast Club that was broadcast out of Chicago on the new ABC Radio Network although she did switch over to Arthur Godfrey’s morning show on CBS when her brother Geoge, an Army Air Forces veteran, was hired to fly Godfrey’s new Douglas DC-3 aircraft garnering occasional on air mentions by Godfrey.

I remember that doing her afternoon chores my mother listened to a variety of soap operas and in the evening after my father came home from work it became a habit to listen to local news, sports, and national and world news from 6 until 6:30 p.m. every day in those pre-Walter Cronkite days. In the evening, we listened to Fibber MacGee and Molly, Jack Benney or the Great Gildersleeve. For me the beauty of radio was that it allowed every listener to use their imagination to visualize the setting and the characters in the story.

We finally got our first television in the fall of 1951 when I was 6 so that my father could watch the winner-take-all playoff game between the Giants and the Dodgers in those long ago days when both still played in New York City. At first we had the choice of one station in Schenectady that carried NBC programming and then after the purchase of an additional antenna and a switch we were able to watch Channel 13 in Utica that in addition to NBC carried CBS and Dumont. Dumont by the way was really a television manufacturer in search of a way to showcase its equipment. They went on the air in 1946 and passed from the scene in 1952 yet are still fondly remembered by collectors of antique television sets.

My life, like many, was shaped by and spanned the Cold War. When I was born the Russians were our fellow victorious allies in World War II with American big bands playing tunes like Mission to Moscow. Song of the Volga Boatman, or Russian Patrol in their honor. By the time I was more aware the Russians had stolen the secret of the atomic bomb, stole most of Eastern Europe and the United States was fighting a war supporting South Korea against Communist North Korea who was supported by the Soviet Union and China.

By 1951 when I was in first grade we were already doing practice air raid drills and learning to duck and cover to protect us from the bomb which could be a little unnerving for six year olds but I guess by that point we were already experienced cold warriors. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis like it was yesterday, fighting in the last proxy war of the Cold War followed eventually by the end of the Soviet Union, and its eventual replacement by the Vladimir Putin Era.

So that’s some of the highlights of the last 80 years or at least what I remember of them.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com.