A Burden to the Earth by Michael J. Sullivan
He learned values from Gunsmoke, and ethics from Father Knows Best but his life turned out much different.
A child of the fifties, Elliot Myers believed his parents and television when they promised him the American dream. Embittered by a world that moved ahead and left him behind, Elliot finds one last chance to free himself of forty years of waiting and makes his first, and final, grasp at life. Set in the early 1990's A Burden to the Earth explores regret over lost innocence, nostalgia for the past, and the cost of dwelling on both.