Sometimes I long for the olden days

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Sometimes when I hear old people tell wonderful stories of life back in the '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s, or if I look at books or watch movies of true stories of what life was like back then, I feel sad. I feel like I've lived in those times, even though those decades existed long before I was even born. But I can still get a feel of what it was like. And, despite all the technology and medical treatment and policies we have today, I bet most old people miss those long-gone days of their childhood or young adult years, despite enduring the second world war. I'm not saying living in those days was plain-sailing, but it's still sad to imagine them compared to now. It makes me feel so terribly emotional.

Britain's changed drastically now, with all this political correctness and multicultural laws and thousands and thousands of new houses being built everywhere on all that lovely countryside. I just picture roads having less traffic and no road markings. I picture women pottering about in their cosy homes washing clothes in the wash tub (even though the homes were cold). I picture the friendly milkman, the coleman, and other local working men going about their daily work in small towns and villages and everybody knows everybody else. I picture children playing happily in the street, and the naughty ones being pulled home by the ear by their neighbour. It all seems like a different world compared to today.

So, please, everybody cherish the elderly. I do. I speak to them like they would speak to the elderly when they were young; with respect and politeness. One day that generation will all be died off. It is very emotional.

I like some aspects of the “old days.” I long for the olden days too, sometimes. I was born in 1961.

Other facets, though, were really worse than they are today.

People were very closed-minded in those days. Forget about having Aspergers. You had to just make do, and navigate the world.

In some ways, we have become less “human.” In other ways, though, it’s much better now than then.

What I miss...

... splashing through the puddles in the spring.
... huddling in the cellar during tornado warnings in the summer.
... going to "Back to School" sales, and the smell of new crayons and erasers.
... wading through the fallen leaves on an autumn day, and the smell of those same leaves being burned.
... dressing up for Hallowe'en and being out after dark without our parents around.
... all of the family together from Thanksgiving through Christmas.
... playing -- I mean really playing -- in snow up to my waist.
... the first green buds on the trees, the first robins, and the first waterfowl on the lake.
... riding my bike all over town, stopping only for a Nehi and some candy at the drugstore.
... exploring the old abandoned tile factory, and finding old coins and rusty tools.
... building small platforms in the trees (I would later learn that hunters used them as perches).
... jumping on to the side of a slow-moving train to catch a ride into the next town, and then walking back.
... mowing a quarter-acre with an old Briggs & Stratton, and then jumping into the creek to cool off.
... fireworks, bonfires, s'mores, ghost stories, and sleeping in the back yard on the Fourth of July.
... just being a kid.

What I don't miss...

... bullies.
... visits to the dentist.
... those nights when my dad would come home in a foul mood and start drinking.
... those long weekends when my dad was in his manic phase.
... teachers who picked on me in class.
... classmates who lied about me to each other and to the teacher.
... the teacher who let my classmates steal my art supplies when I was out sick.
... having to do jumping-jacks until I passed out because some other kid lit a smoke bomb in the boys' room.
... being rounded up among the "usual suspects" whenever something bad happened.
... the algebra teacher who refused to explain things to me, and who told me to just "read the book".
... getting told to not be 'disruptive' for asking college-level questions in middle-school classes.
... being unable to sink a basket from the free-throw line at any time during gym class.
... striking out every time I was at bat.
... the girls who laughed at me every time I asked for a date.
... just being an outcast.

Yeah, some things I miss, and some things I don't.

Joe90 when I saw the title of this thread, I had to laugh. It reminded me of the time my current husband (in his 70s) and I (in my 60s) went to talk to a young 20-something banker about setting something up. He kept saying "back in the day" this and "back in the day" that. We were polite, but no sooner did we leave his presence than my husband and I cracked up, making fun of this KID using a term like "back in the day" to US!

I long for the days of making up stories about fairies and sprites, and making "houses" out of fallen leaves with long piles to delineate the "walls," and piling up all the leaves in a huge stack and then jumping into them, for the days of helping myself to an apple off the back porch that my mother bought by the bushel from an itinerant vendor, for the days of birthday cakes with fluffy white frosting, for church bells on Sunday even though we didn't go to church, for long walks alone at night in a very safe small town, for white go-go boots that were as silly as they were impractical, and for a grandmother's love.

But it doesn't make me sad to think of these things. It gives me pleasure.