Puling millennial wants to blame boomers for everything

In March 1990, when I was covering college basketball for the Reno Gazette-Journal, I was driving from Reno to Boise, Idaho (only 35 miles from my favorite Idaho town, Tickle Me). to cover the Big Sky Conference basketball tournament.

It was a pretty nice day and I was breezing along in my Pontiac Fiero, listening to the kid in the passenger seat rant about how much he hated the Baby Boomers. I don't remember his name, but he was our 21-year-old intern from Arizona State and he was accompanying me to do sidebars and notes.

His two biggest complaints were drugs and Elvis.

Fat Elvis

He despised both.

I tried to explain to him that Elvis wasn't really a boomer deal. He was really a product of the '50s Generation. I'm an early boomer, and Elvis was popular before I even started school.

He wasn't listening, the first of maybe hundreds of times I've heard people whine about the boomers. It never ceases. One of the most ridiculous ones I saw was on Facebook, and it was some puling millennial going on about 25 horrible things the boomers gave to the world.

Puling

I decided to give it a look, and I saw two problems with it. First, the P.M. author had listed 45 things. Second, at least 40 of them were things that had little to do with the Baby Boom.

I was so thrilled to see something that inspired me to respond and had nothing -- well, nearly nothing -- to do with Donald Trump that I sat down right way to do this.

Well, three days later ...

Here we go.

1. DIAMONDS -- Yes, I know diamonds are a scam that maintain their value only through severely limiting the supply. But diamonds were around long before Howdy Doody or Davy Crockett. There's nothing special that connects them to the boomers.

2. GOLF -- Well, George Carlin ranted about golf courses and what a pussy sport golf is. But Carlin was born in 1937, and golf was popular long before the first boomer boomed. Yes, it's still around, and it didn't gain popularity because of the boomers.

Once malls covered the country

3. MALLS -- This is just about the only one on the list I can't argue. Malls started in the '60s and pretty much hit their heyday in the '80s. Now they're going away. When I was at George Washington University at the beginning of the '70s, a friend of mine from Long Island said that Northern Virginians think of Tyson's Corner as heaven. Well, yeah.

4. PLAIN WHITE TOAST -- Say what?