THE BEAT GOES ON

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TheCarscoverGod only knows what the next generation’s going to turn out like, but I wonder about it all the same. I ponder the significant changes in our society, how they’ll never be able to grasp the world we grew up in, just like we can’t truly grasp theirs.

“Turn that thing down!” I remember my dad telling all of us at one time or another when we were listening to music. Sometimes in the house on the cheap HiFi that was available back then. Other times it was in the cars or trucks, his at first, then eventually ours, but he’d always end the demand with an, “It hurts my ears!”

I never believed it really hurt his ears, I mean not much did hurt him. A piece of sheet metal would always cut him while he was at work, some  all the way to the bone; nasty gashes. He’d use duct tape to pull the separated flesh back together and close the bloody manmade valleys by wrapping the grey tape around a couple of times.

Hearing a ringing in his ears, something he hadn’t experienced in his early life, must have felt like it was doing damage. Course, his hillbilly roots and country persuasion didn’t pair too well with the kind of Rock-N-Roll we were spinning.

My generation, well, relative to our parents generation, we were spoiled, we had things our parents never dreamed of having… like loud stereos and they just kept on getting louder. My first car was a dinosaur by today’s standards, but back then Craig Powerplays were state of the art stuff.

My parents, especially my dad, couldn’t grasp why our generation liked to listen to music so loud that you couldn’t talk over it. I had a truck back in the nineties that had speakers, all types, big ones, medium ones, and little ones throughout the massive four-door crew cab. Behind and under the backseat was stuffed full of more bass speakers and amplifiers to adequately drain both batteries in the powerhouse diesel if I dared to play it without the engine running.

You could hear that truck coming from a mile away, and not because the rattling diesel engine either. It was so loud it rattled brains, teeth, quaked the seats and anyone sitting in them right through to their soul.

There have been plenty of occasions where I’ve cranked up the stereos in my truck and the house and none of my girls liked it, I mean not for a second. They’re different than us, well me anyway, they aren’t enamored with fine sounding stereos that have been a part of their entire lives.They have a different perspective than my generation.

If they have a different perspective for something as simple as the sound of a stereo, there’s no doubt they’re gonna have a different perspective for everything else in their lives as well.

The things we bequeath to the next generation will impact not just their generation, but the ones that follow them. Only God knows what technological advances will follow after us, but the true treasures we pass along won’t be stereos or money. They’ll be the treasures that are worth far more than anything money can buy, things like honesty, character, and the love and truth of God above…

And who knows, maybe an old Cars CD that they’ll crank up in memory of the generation that ruined their hearing… voluntarily…

Then again, looks like they’ll be smarter than that… and me…and the beat goes on.

 

(By the way. Here’s a Cars tune, just in case you have a stereo and  want to crank one up… for old times sake…)