There’s nothing like the feeling of nostalgia to me, even if I wasn’t even born for %90 it. Listening to old radio shows, oogling over sports cars that have the equivalant horsepower of a powerful family hatchback, watching the world through a black and white movie screen, how can such simple and low tech forms of entertainment still bring such joy even when being compared to the cutting edge alternatives?
When looking at the past, it’s culture, all the little things from slang to little obscure jokes, I feel pale. Looking through the centuries, the past looked more fun, dangerious, glamerious, elegant, and just… more. For example, locomotives came in every shape and color, each one heavy and seemingly indestructable. Comparing it to today’s locomotives is like comparing a vast gallery of artwork to a collection of identical plaster models with different paint jobs.
There were morals, dignity, responsibility back then, even criminals followed their own rules. Mobsters and gangsters were feared and intelegence to them, grown men seeking out power and respect. Not a bunch of teenaged wannabes following some immature show off so that they can be popular and look cool by wearing some overpriced shirts and gawdy jewlery.
It wasn’t safe, it wasn’t fare, but I feel like that I have less control of my own life today than what I would have twenty or even fourty years ago, where your judged on ‘you’, not on what some college writes on a sheet of paper.
This is probably just a case of “everything looks better in hindsight”, but I still have that feeling that we as a society have been stepping backwards.
San Jacinto Times Staff
