I Miss the Normalcy Compared to Now

He never really went into it. I had the impression there was some tension in those years, early 60s.. There are the usual things he talks about, and some that are kind of vague. We had U2s going west (which they tried to track for fun, they were very fast). And they got a hot call from SAC when they did that (it was a no-no.)
 
I don't think it was ever that simple for me. Some years of great hardship were also the years of some of my bigger positive life events and experiences. In many ways though the 1990s were the worst for me personally and the country at large with the normalization of perpetual war.
 
Lewkat said:
Your parents had that spot on. Late 40s through the 50s were the best of times. We actually liked each other. What a great time that was.
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I agree. People were friendlier, more community minded, and did not take offense at every little thing. As a kid I proudly wore my "I Like Ike" pin on my shirt. People had civility, and admired intellectual activity. Everyone understood the notion of doing the best you could to advance. Actually everything was relatively idyllic until '63 when JFK got murdered. Then things really started to change.
 
There's good and bad in every decade. In every event, every situation, any culture.

And, there is speculation as to why we were really in/out of Vietnam... Possibility The Man may have been in on the War on Drugs (planned, an experiment).

Race riots were going to happen sooner or later, they were just waiting for an opportunity to be triggered.

To borrow a quote from David Lee Roth's book "Crazy From the Heat"-
"One thing I learned in performing live, is that the larger the crowd of humans gets, the more the collective IQ goes down".

He was not wrong.
 
Della said:
Lots of medical procedures like cataract surgery were nightmares.

Many heart diseases and cancers that have good chances of survival today were certain death sentences then.

Most mental illnesses were poorly understood and all the people with chemical imbalances in their brains, like schizophrenics or bipolar, were subjected to long hours of psychoanalysis which only made them more miserable plus electro shock therapy and ice cold baths. Their broken hearted mothers were blamed for it all. Doctors told the mothers of autistic children that it was because they didn't love their children enough.

Many young people were victims of incest or abuse and the subject was so hushed up the victims were barely aware that what was done to them was wrong.

Rape victims were blamed for their own rapes because of the way they were dressed.

Women could not get birth control from their doctors unless they were married. Pregnant women were fired from their jobs, so that they could not afford food for themselves and their child.

Women were beaten by their husbands and their priests and doctors thought they should learn not to provoke them.

Non-white people were discriminated against in hundreds of ways, making it impossible to get certain jobs, decent educations, fair legal representation, good housing, or even good medical care.

People in wheelchairs could not ride public transportation, get inside public buildings, or access most jobs and schools.
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You said it sister! Thanks for this post.
 
Normalcy is, as I suspected, what we Brits call 'Normality'.
I was born in 1950 and we still had the tail end of WW2 rationing.
Certainly some things were better, but on balance, I'm not sure that things were better then.
Just think about dentistry, medicine, access to knowledge etc..

I wouldn't want to go back to then, but if I could, I'd buy up things that have shot up in price and make a small fortune.
 
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