
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, November 29, 1993                   TAG: 9311290093
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Matt Chittum
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE CHOICE WAS THEIRS NOT TO MAKE

When my father, who chose military service over finishing high school, was a little older than I am now, he owned a house, had three kids, and eight years invested in a career that would last another 22.

At 27, I've paid in rent in 29 months what Dad paid for his house. I have three jobs, no kids, and a fair guess at what my next 22 months will be like.

It's the story of my generation.

You know us. We're the ones with all the nifty monikers, like the "twentysomething generation," "Generation X," and more recently, the "nouveau poore."

We've even got a presidential sound-bite descriptor: "the first generation of Americans to do worse than their parents."

I could buy Dad's first car, a '41 Studebaker, with what I've spent on resume paper, envelopes and stamps since I finished graduate school.

Yes, I have a master's degree. Big deal. So do a lot of others at the restaurant where I work.

We're the most overeducated, underemployed generation of Americans ever.

So is it somebody - or something - else's fault, or am I just whining?

I think both.

Here's the whiny part: I wouldn't feel so bad if I never knew it was supposed to be different, like a child raised by apes or wolves. The problem is, I've been to the edge of the forest. I've seen life outside the jungle.

My peers and I found the world beyond hormones and sixth-period chemistry during the '80s, the Reagan/Bush boom years. All we had to do, it seemed, was go to college, pick up the sheepskin in the morning and a blue suit in the afternoon. We'd spend the rest of our lives among golf clubs and child-safety seats, drinking Heineken during the week and Stoli on the weekends.

I figured I'd never have to swing on a vine again.

But before we got to the edge of the woods where the money tree grows, we had a change of heart. As the decade wore on, it became one of excesses. Looking at the gluttony around us, we decided to forsake the wing-tipped-Oxford cloth-Volvo wagon dream. And the problem began.

We opted for entry-level, starving-artist values.

When I first went to Roanoke College, I felt like a subversive just for choosing a low-paying major like English.

Two years later, the number of English majors had tripled.

We're hypocrites for it, but as a generation we counted on being able to afford to reject the '80s way of life.

When I decided to be an English major, I expected to be able to have one full-time job when I got out of school.

Instead, I have to tend bar - and work at the newspaper - to finance my teaching career.

Who knew the vines would overrun the clearing and choke the money tree by the time we got there? And should it have figured in my decision anyway?

The net result is that I'm in a kind of socio-economic purgatory. Having been to where the jungle ends, I'm familiar with a lifestyle I can never afford.

I'm a career restaurant worker on the mailing list of every overpriced catalog clothier in North America. Cycle Systems has a special recycling bin just for my J. Crew catalogs.

But poor as we are, we refuse to return to the leopard skin and fig leaf. So, we've found a way to have the catalog-look without the job or the money, to turn drapes into dresses, and look sharp in the ruins of Tara.

I just wonder if J. Crew makes a charcoal heather reverse-weave roll-neck cashmere loin cloth.

Matt Chittum's job at the newspaper is editorial assistant.

by CNB