I clearly recall as a youth hearing my parents and grandparents bemoaning my age group brethren. How they were nuthin’ but a buncha dirty, long-haired, lazy, clowning, ignorant, un-American commie-pinko, hippie dippies.

No, I didn’t make that up.

We turned out pretty damn good, all in all. But now we turn an eye to our progeny, not with the same brush-cut bile of the 1960s-70s, but with a level of confusion that casts concern over the future of cars and tires and all the stuff we have come to love.

While we and other Baby Boomers became monster consumers, our children – specifically the 16-24-year-olds who are referred to as the Millennials – aren’t quite as enamored with, well, stuff.

Not that they don’t have money to spend – research shows that the 88-million-person strong Millennial generation has greater spending power than Baby Boomers and Generation X – their tastes are quite a bit different than prior generations. For instance, where I go bonkers for that 90-inch Sharp Aquos I saw at Best Buy, my 22-year-old son is eyeing the new iPhone 5.

Those damn hippie dippies!!!

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal shook up its stodgy old self and presented its rundown of eight products it claims the “Facebook generation” (their term for Millennials) will not buy.

• Email: With Facebook, Twitter and texting – and now free messaging services available through certain Smartphones – who needs old-school ‘electronic mail’? According to the WSJ, “From December 2009 to December 2010, time spent using email by the 12- to 17-year-old age group dropped a tremendous 59%. In comparison, time spent using email by people 55 to 64 years old has
increased 22%, and it has increased 28% among those 65 years and older.

• Beer: What!?! Talk about un-American. Back in 1988, 1.5 out of 10 people in their mid 20s had never tried beer. Today, according to Budweiser, it’s four out of 10. Forty percent haven’t even sipped a cold one! And those that do are going straight to “lite” beers, as if that youthful “No, I don’t work out” six-pack could get any better.

• Newspapers: As of 2010, the WSJ reported, “only 7% of 18- to 24-year-olds reported having read a print newspaper the day before, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. This is the first time that figure has reached single digits. This age group also has among the highest rates of people reportedly receiving news through social networking sites or Twitter.” Scary.

• Cars: OK, now we’re hitting too close to home here. In 1998, 64.4% of those ages 16-19 had a valid driver’s license. In 2008, the Federal Highway Administration said that figure had fallen to 46.3%. Making matters worse, a separate researcher found that 46% of drivers aged 18 to 24 claimed they would choose Internet access over owning a car. With rising costs of insurance, fuel and maintenance costs (not to mention high-priced tires), why wouldn’t you opt for $30 per month WiFi versus $300 per month car payments? Problem is you can’t ride your laptop to work…or can you?

• Landline Phones: Really cannot argue with this. In 2010, the WSJ reported, 51.3% of Americans aged 25 to 29 lived in households with only wireless phones, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

• Cigarettes: And here we thought those health classes were all crapola. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the share of people 18 to 24 years of age who were current cigarette smokers decreased by 17.6% from 2005 to 2010 – the largest decrease among any age group,” the WSJ said.

• Desktop Computers: Laptops, smartphones and now tablets have over-run the entire desktop computing business. According to Pew Research, 70% of Millennials own a laptop, but only 57% own a desktop.

• Television: OK, now this has gotten ugly. How can we tell them what products to like, love and buy if they don’t watch TV? But it’s true: those age 18 to 24 watch less traditional television than any other age group in the country, according to the Nielsen rating folks, who should know. Instead, they opt more and more for Internet-based TV (23% versus 8% for all other age groups). And they only watch 24 hours per week, compared to the national average of 32.5 hours.

Well, good luck trying to reach this group!

* * * * * * *

Tire dealers are always complaining about local competition. Whether it’s from a mega-merchant or a car dealer or another independent down the street, competition is the scourge of the earth, under-cutting prices, stealing customers, playing “bait-n-switch,” etc., etc., etc.

So how would you like to have your store in beautiful American Fork, Utah, a city of about 27,000 people with an astounding 11 tire stores – one for every 2,455 people?

Hard on the I-15 corridor between Provo and Salt Lake City, American Fork is home to newcomers Glen’s Tires and City Tires, both located on the same street.

Then there is Big O, Discount Tire, Tire City, Les Schwab, Certified Tire & Services, T&C Tire Factory, Walmart, Gene Harvey Tire, Doug Smith Tire and Ken Garff Tire.

One intersection sports four tire stores, one on each corner. No kidding.

Just across the border separating American Fork from neighboring Lehi is a Costco, a 12th tire competitor. And a number of independent repair garages, Jiffy Lubes and car dealers that dot the map.

So exactly how did a city once known for poultry become the Retail Tire Store Mecca of the U.S.A.?

Interstate 15 brings a ton of out-of-town traffic; city fathers estimate that 40,000 vehicles traverse Main Street each and every day. So a lot of business comes from travelers, not tire-tired locals.

Still, can’t think of a worse place to go toe-to-toe-to-toe-to-toe with competition.

As one dealer reportedly said, “There is definitely too much competition in American Fork. But I only have to be better than 10 of them."