The "good old days" ?

[Papaumau]

Or if we really thought about them, were they not really the BAD old days ?

I know that elderly folk like us are regularly tempted to reminisce back to our younger days and it is sometimes a bit too easy to look back and only see the good things that happened without seeing the bad things too.

As I came from a background of abject poverty I do not have many things to remember that were good things and some of the things that happened to me in those days I would rather forget if given the chance.

What about you ?

What would you like to see brought forward from those days and do you remember your youth with pleasure or with pain ?

[Hells Granny]

Being something of a Luddite, I'd prefer to go back a bit, lose the Internet and mobile phones, pre- the days when TV told us how our homes and gardens should look, to a time when Fashion just meant clothes.

When we could get our electrical goods repaired and serviced by someone you knew, in a local shop, and where shopkeepers and staff knew their stock, and could advise how to get best performance.

When you could buy nails by the pound, not prepackaged in units of five.

When there were fewer cars, people had less expectations, didn't travel miles  to work, didn't jet off abroad for holidays, communities were stronger because we knew our neighbours, and we were friendlier and more helpful to each other.

Our children were healthier, as they had no option but to go out to play and socialise with each other. too much hygeine nowadays is resulting in children with little natural resistance to disease, as their immune systems are not developing, due to exposure to everyday bacteria.

Cheers, HG

[Papaumau]

Yes HG, those ARE some of the kinds of things that we look back at fondly, however, being a progressive I do think that while we have lost a lot of things like that we have gained many more.

The world is now known as the "global village" now that the internet and the cheap air-travel is reaching most of us. With these kinds of progression we can choose to have many more friends all around the world that we might not have had the chance at before.

While medicine is becoming VERY expensive we have to be grateful for the discoveries that help to keep us healthy and alive for much longer and now that we also have access to many vegetables and fruits and stuff from abroad our diets are far better then they ever were in the good, ( bad ), ole days.

I also remember having to do with a piece on dripping when I was a hungry child and travelling in uncomfortable, filthy and smelly old diesel buses, with people smoking all around me that made me physically sick after three or so miles.

I also remember sleeping in a lumpy old bed with a ton of blankets on me and wishing that the morning might never come so that I could avoid getting out of bed into a freezing house.

Yes HG, we have lost a lot in the intervening years but I think that we have gained more in modernity than we have lost.

Anybody else got anything to say for or against this subject ?

[neatabulb]

I agree a lot with Hells Granny and would like to add National service, that could remove a lot of vandals from our streets and maybe reintroduce manners and respect.
We live in a rat race where most people are only concerned about their own environment, have no time for kids, so their kids grow up without discipline and some become the Vandals of the world.

There should be more discpline in schools maybe not to the extent we had but teachers  should be allowed to chastise pupils without being in fear of being sued, people should fend for themselves. Why should my taxes go to help layabouts? Do away with the majority of benefits.