December 31, 1995

WAS 1995 the first skirmish in the great generational war? If so, many analysts suggest, Americans have little stomach for it. For years now, an influential group of academics and political theorists has been predicting this clash: As a great wave of baby boomers begins to retire in the next 15 years, generational tensions will come to drive American politics just as race and class and ethnicity have in eras past.

Whatever else 1996 may bring, the New Year promises one frightening mathematical certainty -- the now famous statistic from the National Council on Aging: starting at midnight tonight and continuing through the year 2014, a member of the baby-boom generation will turn 50 on the average of every 7.5 seconds. That adds up to more than 75 million voters, consumers and employees (boomers make up more than a third of the nation's population of approximately 250 million). The impact of this demographic milestone has been much explored in economic and social terms. But its effects on culture promise to be no less momentous. Could classical music's popularity suddenly soar, as millions of baby boomers finally admit that they don't feel angry enough for rock anymore? Will this notoriously self-absorbed generation remain smitten with its lost youth, as evidenced in the pop music, movies and television shows it favors, or will it confront society's conflicting attitudes toward aging? Perhaps we'll see more starring film roles for performers over 50, in tales of love and other new-found happiness among the middle-aged. (Maybe Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood in "The Bridges of Madison County" were only the beginning.) The New York Times asked six notable people in the arts who will turn 50 in 1996 to reflect on the possibilities. Page 24.

ERIN RAKOW'S sixth-grade teachers at H. C. Crittenden Middle School in Armonk are used to seeing her a little sleepy in the morning. For nine months she played Cosette in "Les Miserables" on Broadway where she sang her solo, "Castle on a Cloud," six performances a week and was an understudy for two other performances. "I loved doing it so much," said Erin a day before her 12th birthday earlier this month at her home here where she lives with her parents, Susan Rakow, a physical therapist, and Rick Rakow, a commercial real estate agent, and her brother, Matthew, 8. "I did my homework in the car, backstage, and now sometimes waiting at auditions," she said, a system that must work for her. Erin is a straight-A student.

By a unanimous voice vote, the House approved a plan today that would bring all 260,000 furloughed Federal employees back to work immediately but without pay. Even though House Democrats went along with the bill, they warned that it was doomed in the Senate, where Democrats oppose a provision to limit debate on the ultimate budget proposal.

THE roughly 76 million baby boomers, raised to expect lives of unlimited possibilities, start turning 50 tomorrow. And as their future becomes their now, the older boomers are beginning to gray and wrinkle, to wear bifocal contact lenses, to marvel at how young the police are -- and to discover that while many of them will live long, few will prosper. As a group, boomers earn so much that whole industries -- cars being the most expensive example -- made themselves over to win their business. But as individuals, most boomers struggle from paycheck to paycheck, even when there are two breadwinners.