My Good Old Days

My Good Old Days

I started a post as a follow up to my sarcastic piece (yes it was not intended to be serious) about SpongeBob Ice-pops.  Somewhere in this yet to be finished post, I used the term “The Good Old Days.”

I have referred to my youth in the 50’s and 60’s as “The Good Old Days” in the past and I’ve been lambasted with talk of poverty, hunger, polio, and numerous other really bad things about those days, many that still exist today, and I’ve been advised that in fact those days were not good old days for many people at all.

Somehow this got my cranky up.  It does not take much, because Gol Dammit for me those days were GOOD OLD DAYS.  I do have fond memories of those days, and to ME they were good old days.  I liked those days, I was lucky and all that bad stuff that I am always reminded of did not touch me, or as a child I did not worry about it, so for me they were GOOD OLD DAYS!!

If those days sucked for you, I am truly sorry.  Some children never experience the good old days, the days when you are a child and are carefree and all is good with the world, days where all the bad stuff goes over your head because you are a kid and you are lucky, but Gol Dammit I refuse to feel guilty because I never went hungry, always had a roof over my head and had heat in the Winter.  I will not feel guilty for not having polio.  I had mumps, measles, rubella and chicken pox, but no polio…. SORRY!!

Kids from 6 to 16 should all have their own good old days.  Many do not and that is sad.  I know I am a very lucky person.  I knew kids who had polio, and parents in those days must have gone to bed every night praying that that scourge did not touch their loved ones.  I remember seeing children my age picking cotton in the fields in the hot sun.  I did not have proper empathy for them, I was a kid, SORRY!

There is a lot of bad stuff today.  These days will never truly be “The Good Old Days”, there has never been and never will be an age that will truly be “The Good Old Days” for all, but if you are young and lucky you will have your own Good Old Days.  If you never had any Good Old Days. I am sorry, I was lucky, I did.  Don’t hate me for it.

As a matter of fact, as an old dude looking back, even with some bad stuff like…well trust me, there has been some bad stuff, almost all my days have been good old days.  I have been a very lucky person, SORRY!

Someday, in the not too distant future, if I escape a sudden and quick demise, I will be in bed taking my supper through a bendy straw and waiting for the inevitable.  If on that day I reminisce about the “Good Old Days” and someone corrects me to tell me about all the bad stuff that was around way back when; I will somehow find the strength to raise up, grab him by the neck, shake him till he cries and yell, “THEY WERE THE GOOD OLD DAYS FOR ME…Gol Dammit!”