R3VOLUTION: Gray Champions Burn Their AARP Cards

When they were in college they burned bras and draft cards.
Now Boomers, this saeculum's Prophets, are buring their AARP cards.

From The Fourth Turning:

"One afternoon in April 1689 as the American colonies boiled with rumors that King James II was about to strip them of their liberties, the king's hand-picked govenor of New England, Sir Edmund Andros, marched his troops menacingly through Boston. His purpose was to crush any thought of colonial self-rule . . .

"Just at that moment, seemingly from nowhere, there appeared on the streets "the figure of an ancient man" with "the eye, the face, the attitude of command." His manner "combining the leader and the saint," the old man planted himself directly in the path of the approaching British soldiers and demanded that they stop. "The solemn yet warlike peal of that voice, fit either to rule a host in the battlefield or be raised to God in prayer, were irresistible. At the old man's word and outstretched arm, the roll of the drum was hushed at once, and the advancing line stood still."

"Inspired by this single act of defiance, the people of Boston roused their courage and acted. Within the day Andros was deposed and jailed, the liberty of Boston saved, and the corner turned on the colonial Glorious Revolution." (Strauss, W. & Howe, N.(1997). The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy. Broadway Books, New York. p. 139; Internal quotes from Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales).




"Who was this Gray Champion?" . . . No one knew except that he had once been among the fire-hearted young Puritans who first settled New England a half-century earlier. Later that evening, just before the old priest-warrior disappeared, the townspeople saw him embracing the eighty-five year old Simon Bradstreet, a kindred spirit and one of the few original Puritans still alive.

"Would the Gray Champion ever return? "I have heard," added Hawthorne, "That whenever the descendents of the Puritans are to show the spirit of their sires, the old man appears again." (ibid.)

It looks like the Gray Champion is getting ready to ride again.