In all likelihood, a hundred years from now, the incumbent generation will be reflecting on their “good old days.”  Just as it is now with those long in the tooth, remembering their distant past.    

At a gathering at the cancer center at Piedmont Hospital recently, I ruminated and reminisced about the good old days that I consider special.  It included the view that while there are some remarkable plusses, regarding the world today, that there is something to be said about the days when we:

• Drank Cokes from the small bottle
• Didn’t curse like sailors in casual conversation
• Always opened the car doors for ladies
• Believed that the bottom line was important but did not worship it
• Didn’t lock our doors, day or night
• Enjoyed our front porch swing
• Watched TV for news and entertainment, not garbage and political rants
• Wore a coat and tie when we boarded an airplane
• Considered gardens a staple of living, even if we resided in town. We were proud to be industrious and enterprising
• Took our kids to the woods to cut our Christmas tree
• Were punished when we got home if we had gotten out of line at school; your parents always agreed with the principal
• You could take your kids shopping and not have to worry about a sexual predator lurking about
• Got the same grateful reaction from a bicycle at Christmas as kids offer up for an SUV today
• Saw kids shooting marbles at recess, instead of monitoring their iPhones

A lady countered my dissertation on the past with the notion that there are so many great things today such as what takes place in medicine — that living today makes these times the remarkable times. The good old days are now!

She had a point, which brought about a lot of rumination afterwards.  She was right in that there are medical cures now that boggle the mind.  In the good old days refereed to at the outset, there would not have been organ transplants which have saved and extended lives.

However, I, nonetheless, believe that the problem with our times, is that we are more selfish, less disciplined, greedier, more likely to hate and give people the back of our hand.

For all of technology’s worth, it has no heart and soul.  It is impersonal and can be demeaning.  It is a wonderful world today, but today’s ill-mannered society did not exist in my “good old days.” We had respect for others, their property and their privacy.