The "Back to the Future" standard for youth

My Under 30 column this week is going to be a little wacky. Instead of writing on one subject, I'm doing a rummage sale of ideas that didn't quite work but are kinda cool anyway. (Get it? Rummage sale? Memorial Day? I kill me.) Some will call this column a brilliant deconstruction of the usual formula. Others will say it's a lazy collection of half-baked ideas. Me, I call it a brilliantly half-baked deconstruction.

One idea that will make it in there (I think) is my "Back to the Future" standard for youth. Basically, if you were born before "Back to the Future" came out (the summer of 1985), I consider you a member of my generation or older. If you were born after "Back to the Future" came out, you are a kid and always will be a kid to me.

I don't know why "Back to the Future" is my personal Mendoza line. It just makes sense. Seriously, born into a world that has always known Marty McFly, Doc Brown and Biff? So alien.