Published: June 22, 2008 12:44 am            

WOLCOTT: Let’s not get serious about the great gap

A sociologist reported the generation gap today is as great as it was during the coming of rock ’n’ roll. Wrong. The gap today is Grand Canyon-sized, compared to Letchworth State Park.

I was in the gap 50 years ago when songs shifted from “How Much is that Doggy in the Window?” to “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog.” Today we’re on a different level, with the gap in the middle.

The new gap is comparable to the growing divide between the wealthy and the workers.

Generation gap may have been coined in the 1950s but it’s all over the place now. The gap was rougher then, more jaded. Today the gap is global, but kids are smoother and more gracious with the older generation.

The separation is there, but we recognize we need each other. The folks depend on the kids for text messaging and to explain the mysteries of the iPod, and the children depend on the folks for everything else.

I’m blessed to have 17 nieces and nephews on the good side of the family and 17 on the other. (Really. I can name them.) In order to get an understanding of the younger generation, I try to stay informed.

With that in mind, I began reading “PreTeena” at the top of the comics page before drifting down to my four longtime favorites.

PreTeena features an enthusiastic 10-year old redhead, Teena Keane, whose sarcasm not only went over my head, but over the heads of the other children who were not as precocious.

Jeri Keane, PreTeena’s 14-year-old sister was dressed in the latest teen fashion and was Teena’s primary target. There were boys in baseball caps pointed in such a way as to keep the sun out of their ears.

I didn’t need a translator for the dialog in balloons. An interpreter would have helped, however.

I was just getting the hang of the language when “PreTeena” disappeared from the top the of page. It was replaced by “Pooch Cafe” in my favorite newspaper. Respected journalists didn’t notice the change at the back of Section B, but I did.

PreTeena, which began in 2001, was discontinued on May 18 after Allison Barrows and the Universal Press Syndicate apparently had a financial dispute. There was no longer a buffer between the real world and “Frank & Ernest.”

At 10 years old, Teena was leaning toward a career in journalism. I don’t know if that’s a good idea. We can’t get kids to read the newspaper, much less the comics.

On Sunday, the funnies are on the first page, and in color, and that’s done for a reason. I don’t know why they’re on the penultimate page during the week. There are pages coming between the readers and a lesson or a laugh.

Contact reporter Bill Wolcott

at 439-9222, ext. 6246.

        

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