Nostalgia? All it's cracked up to be?

Didn't read the book but the "Dune" movie in time travel parlance. Past, present and future is, "meh".
 
I miss silver coins, 5 cent candy bars, my '47 GMC pick up, '67 bugs. Much of the geography of my past is gone. I couldn't go back if I wanted to.
 
Definitely not 1965. I wasn't born until 22 years later and probably would find 1965 to be a big let down aside from the quality of riding mowers/lawn tractors available at the time. I guess my house would be alright...it was built in 1960 with no major remodels, but significant upgrades have been done to the electrical and HVAC, etc.

I drive older vehicles, live in an oldish house, and am shopping for an older mower, but it's hard to say if I'd want to go back to another time. There are things I'd do over knowing what I know now, but overall things have turned out alright, and I quite like fiber optic internet running to my 1960 house with two 18-26 year old trucks in the driveway.
 
I find Dune to be an incredibly philosophical series of books and consider Frank Herbert to have been a genius for some of the ideas and portrayals in his books. I'll put up this quote which I came across a few years back that hit pretty hard at the time. From Frank Herbert's 1981 "God Emperor of Dune":

“Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed.”

To me, that statement implies that nostalgia is often deceiving and it is against our nature to be satisfied with the present. Instead we either look forward to a "better" future or lament the loss of the "better" past.
Dune was one of the most memorable books I’ve ever read and I have to second your opinion.

That is a brilliant quote.

Thank you for posting it.
 
We didn't need hand sanitizer and never really had to wash our hands as much as a kid. For entertainment we'd play all sort of sports all day Saturday and Sunday.
 
I was born in 1969,so I was a kid of the 70s. Being a kid in the 70s was AWESOME!! We played outside, rode our Big Wheels and bikes up and down the street, drew in the street with chalk rocks, we'd sit outside at night and tell ghost stories,play red light green light, drew race tracks on the street for our Hot Wheels,and all kinds of other stuff.
 
We tend to only remember the good times, not the bad. I’m 33 and I dont miss most of my 20s. I’m way happier now than I used to be and that’s because I got my priorities set straight and don’t care what people think like I used to.

Most of what I actually have nostalgia over is from when I was a kid and memories with loved ones who are no longer alive.

The world has always been chaotic - it’s just more widely reported 24/7 and in your face. There are many things we have to be grateful for today.
 
despite the TV going to a test pattern at midnight.

Not much TV as a kid, TV gradually came to NZ in the '60's. We used to go and watch it at other kids places, and was only on for a few hours in the evening. 2 channels and colour came in 1974. By then this little clip was on at the close of TV, it's become iconic for some. I guess it became a right of passage for kids to stay up late and actually see Goodnight Kiwi. The tower is real, it sits high in the Waitakere Ranges to the west of Auckland City, and can be seen from most everywhere. Parents probably drove past it on the way to West Coast beaches, and showed their kids where Goodnight Kiwi lived.



Where I work these days is kinda like going back to the '70's. Old school guys in an old school workshop - we fix things, we make things, and nothing is impossible.
 
I was lamenting the disappearance of old time auto parts places and it got me to thinking. Just turned 60 and remembered when I was a kid. Banks closed at 5pm and if you needed cash on the weekend you waited until Monday at 9 am. Same for shoes, clothes, etc. Most places closed Friday afternoon and opened up Monday morning. Some places had a half day on Saturday. I was living in San Jose in the 1960's and remember 7-11 being open from 7-11. I also remember the dairies and orchards that have been gone for decades now. Internet? Cell phones? Cash machines, money less transaction's.....Netflix. the list goes on and on. Given the chance who would turn back the clocks to 1965?

I am in my mind 30's but I would much rather have grown up in the 60's /70's. I remember even the 90's were a lot better then today. Yes technology is nice but it ruined people and our world like crazy in many ways.
 
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be....

"The future ain’t what it used to be. " Yogi Berra ..... https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/03/the-50-greatest-yogi-berra-quotes

I do love to reminisce about the good times. Not so much about the bad. 1965, 9 years old, yea I didn't think too much about the Vietnam war gearing up, the race riots, etc.. Roaming the neighborhood on our bikes, fishing, sandlot baseball.......dang I wish I would have kept that Mickey Mantle baseball card!
 
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I was lamenting the disappearance of old time auto parts places and it got me to thinking. Just turned 60 and remembered when I was a kid. Banks closed at 5pm and if you needed cash on the weekend you waited until Monday at 9 am. Same for shoes, clothes, etc. Most places closed Friday afternoon and opened up Monday morning. Some places had a half day on Saturday. I was living in San Jose in the 1960's and remember 7-11 being open from 7-11. I also remember the dairies and orchards that have been gone for decades now. Internet? Cell phones? Cash machines, money less transaction's.....Netflix. the list goes on and on. Given the chance who would turn back the clocks to 1965?
That's a blast from the past. I am age 60 as well. TV went off the air every night at midnight and so did radio. some stations went off air earlier. No cell phones, if someone didn't answer the land line then you just had to call at another time. IF you had a color tv you were probably rich. No cable just rabbit ears. maybe 1-3 channels at best and often the pic was snowy. cartoons were on Saturday mornings and maybe afterschool. For pre school there was Captain Kangaroo. I can recall there being what was known as "counter checks" that stores kept on hand. If you forgot your checkbook you could just write a counter check to make your purchase and the stores had counter checks for most of the local banks. Most grocery store were open till only 6:00 or 7:00 so if you ran out of bread or eggs or milk you just had to wait till morning. Gas stations sold only gas, oil, tires and maybe cigarettes and soda. They were not quick stops as we know them today. No bottled water either. I recall going on trips with parents as a youngster (almost every summer went from Fargo to grandparent's ranch in Wyoming) when you stopped for gas Mom or dad filled up the water jars with water from the gas station. Most gas stations had a faucet and hose just for travelers to fill up with water. Sometimes we would stop at Wall Drug in SD and get the free water there. They had signs every few miles along I 90 it seemed. Oil cans were made of cardboard and the oil spouts leaked oil and made a big mess when adding oil. Standard trans vehicles out numbered auto trans. I learned to drive on a 3 on the tree Ford Falcon and a four on the floor F100.
 
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The cars were so simple that the engines were interchangeable for lots of year models. An old boy down the street had a 63 Chevy with a rebuilt engine. He like the looks of the 65 Chevy better, so he bought one with a blown engine, swapped in his rebuilt engine from the 63 and life was good.
 
A senior lady once remarked to me that, "The good old days were mostly just a lot of hard, hard work." That really rang true. It's true that kids these really do not know just how easy they have it. At the same time, I don't think people are any happier as not every thing is better and a lot of things are worse.
 
Born in 78, and as a kid till around 4th grade was freaking boring at home (can't go out side to play in a bad neighborhood). Thank god I got a Nintendo by then and was able to play games, which end up leading me to the path of software / firmware engineering. I would say life is always better now than before other than the cost of living and inflation. Things were more expensive but you can save up for them, now things are almost un-affordable if you don't have the right job, and too cheap if you have the right job. You knew you can go to college and get a good pay back then but now you need to think whether the diploma is worth the student loan or not.
 
Good thread! A few thoughts:

re. "the good old days". They were good for some but not for everybody. For significant segments of our population they were downright awful. That's getting better fortunately.

I'm 43 and have three kids under 11. aquariuscsm rattled off a number of things kids in the 70s did - FWIW I did the same stuff in the 80s and that list is practically a checklist that my kids today still follow 😁

I was in that first generation that had home gaming systems and grew up with computers. For all the talk about "kids these days" sitting around on their butts watching screens, while I think there's a kernel of truth in that I don't think it's as bad as people like to think. I played plenty of games but still found time to ride bikes around the neighborhood, play sports all year, make Eagle Scout, etc. My kids are similar - there's time for screens and there's time for other stuff.

Now if you want to talk music, well then yes it was better in the old days 😁

jeff
 
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