By Mary Morony
Recently prompted by so much rhetorical comment on social media and those emails, you know the kind, I decided to take a stroll down memory lane to the good old days. When were they exactly? You know those halcyon days when the living was easy, and yer mamma was good lookin’? Oh, she wasn’t, pity, but yo’ daddy was rich, right? No, hmm, but the good old U.S. of A. was the best country in the world, free and right and …No? Come on. It had to be.
What do you mean? J. Edgar Hoover was a cross-dressing tyrant that abused his power at the FBI so much so that if he attempted his stunts today he would be serving time? Or perhaps back in the day you leaned a little too much to the left and felt the need to share in film or what have you; you might be brought up before the House Un-American Activities Committee and have to explain it all to Mr. McCarthy.
Oh, let’s not forget all that separate but equal equality for the blacks. Back in the good ole days, it was true that if you got caught driving drunk, the friendly policeman might just turn a blind eye. That was if you knew the right people, lived in the right neighborhood or didn’t kill a white person. I don’t suppose I need to go into the two sets of water fountains, bathrooms, restaurants and entrances do I? Equal? Right? Good?
We had fall shelters in the glory days. I remember a few cropping up in our neighborhood. A couple, with such disdain for one another that they drank themselves to oblivion every night, built one. The joke was; did they put an addition on the shelter for the booze? I remember spending the night with their hapless daughter and praying that night would not be the night that we would have to lock our selves away. I was clear, I would rather take my chances with nuclear fallout.
The tyrant Nikita Khrushchev populated more than just my nightmares with his buffoonery by taking off his shoe and banging away on a desk at the U.N. What an iconic case of hey, pot I’m kettle and you are black. Who could forget the arms and space races? Why couldn’t winning those races make the world safe? I wondered since it was a forgone conclusion that WE would win until the Ruskies launched a Sputnik (not to be confused with Spudnuts) before we did.
Yikes, maybe you couldn’t believe everything you heard in civics class. Do they still teach civics? Let’s not forget all the fun we all had sitting by the TV as the world held their collective breath as Kennedy and Khrushchev went eyeball to eyeball in the Cuban Missile debacle. Seemingly overnight, in an attempt to make us feel like we were out of harms way, yellow and black ‘shelter’ symbols appeared brought to you by the Department of Civil Defense. The signs—a black circle on a yellow background inside the circle were three yellow triangles pointing down with a capacity amount. Beneath the sign was another designating a public fallout shelter with a directional arrow pointing the way to wait for it—stairwells? Rest assured there was 75¢ well spent, I know, I felt safer.
What a wonderful world, back in the days when friends shook hands and said how do you do. By by the way, did you know that the world was so wonderful back then–spoiler alert–according to the creators of What a Wonderful World, producer Bob Thiele and songwriter George David Weiss, hoped that Louis Armstrong’s grandfatherly image would help convey the song’s political message? Released in 1968 amidst curfews, race riots and the a fear of a second civil war which included attacks on Jewish shops not to mention an unpopular war in Viet Nam and the riots that broke out on college campuses all across the nation.
The good old days sounds more like the same circus with different monkeys. In some ways this makes me feel a little better. This foolishness that is passing itself off as politics as usual is just that! The only difference is we get the news of it faster with less filters.
Sure, there were lots of things good about those old days. Sipping lemonade on a hot day with nothing to do, because it was still okay back then to do nothing sometimes. Ice skating on frozen ponds in the winter, catching fireflies on a summer’s night, and riding your bicycle with cards clothes-pinned to spokes everyone a good old day kind of activity. All of these we can still do, but we don’t seem to make time for them like we used to. Back when we were kids. My suspicion is that the good old days is more about the joy and wonder of childhood. Those fond memories were based on the parts between the “important” stuff that makes up the headlines.
Something to think about; the good old days are happening right now for our kids. These are their good old days. Help make them great, why don’t you?