My older brother is a boomer. He was always a boomer: A part of a recognizable demographic phenomena that does not need reference to any other generation to be defined.

I didn't know I was 'Gen X' until well into adolescence when someone decided they needed something other than 'he's-not-a-boomer' to describe me.

Can I be something that wasn't even something when I was born? What does that even mean?

The other 'generations,' even unto the newly minted 'millenials,' are just iterations of 'not-a-boomer,' 'not-not-a-boomer' and 'not-not-not-a-boomer.'

In truth, I always thought I was a boomer. In many ways, still do.

And, 'Gen X' may have been the first to deal openly with pedophile priests, but those priests were themselves boomers. (not for nothing, but both my unimpeachably boomer brother and my retroactively labelled self were both repeatedly warned not to be found alone with the same cadre of Father McCreepy and Brother What-the-what, of the un-Holy Orders of the wholly ridiculous.)

But I'm right there with you on cassette tapes. My finger still twitches, and the old familiar ache 'round the heart returns, when I think of the hours poised, supplicant before the mighty WBCN, waiting to cue up that one song that would make complete a single mixtape for that one girl... None, probably, survive to this day and a million monkeys working for a million years couldn't recreate them.. They were unique. I recently made a spotify playlist for my lady friend, and accidentally shared it with a friend, who happens to be a lady. I felt dirty... like I had done something common with something special.