It occurred to me as I was riding into work this morning–using my steering wheel as an interim guitar to the sounds of Poison’s Don’t Need Nothin’ But a Good Time–that my generation grew up in what I’d like to call the Sweet Spot. Our music reflected these times. It was, quite frankly, just fun and happy. I think this revelation actually began taking root last night while I was watching the coverage of Michael Jackson’s tragic death.

His music was the keystone for our “Let’s have fun,” “Party all the time,” generation. I concluded that our music– as pop-y and unsophisticated as some of it was–could have been a result of our generation not having the threat of war hanging over our heads. Unlike many generations before us, the boys in my high school and young men of my college era were able to totally focus on building a life. There was no talk of a draft and no major political or foreign conflicts that would denote the prospect of a protracted war in those days. How idyllic.

My son, however, has known nothing but war or the threat of it since nearly the day he was born in 1990. It seems the world became a different place in the blink of an eye. In 2001, when he was 11, he reacted to the 9-11 attacks with a steely, sad, and eerie Teflon-like resolve, as if he weren’t surprised at all that the world could offer up such a nasty dose of hatred-based reality. His music— in all its chaotic and thrashy glory, definitely reflected the frenetic, uncertain times he grew up in.

I began playing my “happy music” around the house. I now know that he thought I was nuts as I bopped around the kitchen to Van Halen’s, Dance the Night Away. I thought by some crazy osmosis I could make things all right for him—that he might actually like and start listening to my music. Of course, that did not happen. Today, at 19, my son is an extroverted, opinionated proponent of social reform. He carries a chip on his shoulder and a catalog of Rage Against the Machine songs on his iPod.

While my iPod has some current music on it, it is mostly full of my idyllic ditties. I will always wish that my son could forge ahead as we did–totally oblivious to real world issues–banging our heads and spinning each other “right ‘round, baby, right ‘round.”

God, those were good days.