I have finally achieved the age of my parents, or maybe finally admitted it. When my son Charles and I ride in the car together, we have begun a debate over what to listen to on the radio.

My choice is news. I enjoy listening to National Public Radio’s news in the afternoon or to public radio’s Marketplace.

“Noooooo,” he’d loudly lament. “That’s boring.”

Advertisement

OK, maybe at 12 he’s not mature enough to appreciate the good that can come from being informed. Maybe he’s not yet developed the acumen to desire to know what’s happening with the country’s business world.

“How about a little rock,” I’d suggest.

“What kind of rock?”

“What do you mean? Rock ’n’ roll that I grew up with,” I would say.

“Dad,” he’d say, his hand on my shoulder as if to convey the wisdom of Solomon concerning music. “You mean soft rock? Because your music is kind of boring, too.”

“What?” I’d respond incredulously. “My rock, well, rocks.”

“Yeah, right,” he would say shaking his head as though I had just landed on the planet. “How about my stations?”

And he starts to punch buttons on the radio. Suddenly there is this horrid, loud noise coming out of the speakers and I couldn’t believe it. I never knew the stereo would allow such sounds to be heard.

“What’s that?” I said, almost exasperated.

“That’s rock, dude.”

All right, maybe I can’t keep up with all what’s going on in the music world. Much of it I don’t care about. It’s unimportant to me. But it is disheartening to think that artists like Billy Joel, The Police, John Mellencamp (formerly John Cougar and John Cougar Mellencamp), Jim Croce, even Alice Cooper, have passed from rock and pop to “old folks’ music.” I guess it had to happen sometime.

There was a time when my brothers would listen to their rock music loudly and it drove our mom crazy.

I tried to comfort her and tell her not to worry, I would never play my music that loudly. She looked at me with disbelief, but I did manage to get a smile out of her. Of course I never made a promise to listen to my music softly, which was good because I never would have been able to keep that one.

It’s disconcerting to imagine years from now when Charles is in my position, riding in his vehicle with his son and having the same conversation.

“What?” he’d exclaim to my grandson, “you don’t like Linkin Park or Three Days Grace? That really rocks, dude.”

“Dad,” my grandson would say, hand on his father’s shoulder, “Your music is really lame; it’s just so old fashioned.”

Then again, maybe fantasizing about that conversation isn’t as disturbing as it is amusing. I just hope I can be in the back seat, gumming my food to chuckle at the generational cycle. Then I can say those four little words that parents want to say more often than they do: I told you so.

Let that be a lesson to all you upstarts who try to wrest control over the radio from your parents. Most things come full circle. Be careful how you criticize your old man’s music and learn to appreciate the oldies because your time is just around the corner.

JEFF ZERINGUE is managing editor of The Daily Iberian. He can be reached at iberianedit@bellsouth.net.