Millennials

 

 Yesterday afternoon while I was fishing the stream pictured above which is located in the Maryland suburbs, I came across a pool where I spotted a number of nice bass. Although I carefully got to a place where I was partially hidden, the fish were spooky and I caught only a couple of bluegills. While I was deciding whether to change positions or to change flies, a woman came walking along the trail on the other side of the stream with her dog. She stopped at the pool and threw a ball into the middle of the stream, and the dog went bounding in to retrieve it. Of course all the fish scattered for cover.

Rightly or wrongly I decided to just leave without saying anything to her because I was so pissed that I was afraid I'd say something to the old bat (she was probably about my age) I'd later regret. I walked downstream where I caught a few more fish before I decided to pack it in for the day. I was wading across the water through a shallow area when a young man who looked to be in his twenties came walking up the trail. He also had a dog with him.

"Are you fishing here?" he asked.

"I was, but I'm pretty much finished," I answered.

"Is it ok if we come through?" he asked.

"Yes, it's fine. Thank you for asking."

Millennials often get a bad rap. The old woman could learn something about consideration of others from that one. I know that one reason I'm defensive for that age group is because my two children are on the upper range of that demographic. They and their friends are nothing like the negative generalizations I sometimes hear about millennials. They are honest and hardworking and don't whine about the crummy circumstances handed to them by the older generations. Another reason I defend the millennials is that my group, the baby-boomers, were also subjected to unfair and inaccurate stereo-types by some of our elders. Old people have been complaining about the young forever. Those geezers are probably just jealous.