The Good Old Days

~ Gottfried

Wish we could turn back time to the good old days. When our momma sang us to sleep, but now we’re stressed out. My curfew was lighting bugs. My parents didn’t call my cell, they yelled my name. I played outside and not online. If I didn’t eat what my mom cooked, I didn’t eat. I’m beginning to think we were the last generation to embrace the outdoors. Today’s kids are couch potatoes.

In the old days men were men in-deed and were married by women deserving of them. Not these chewing gum boys and Instagram girls who can’t even cook a happy meal. I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you left them. Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory. I’m pretty sure things weren’t as rosy as I imagine. We all wanted to grow up so bad. Now look at us. Idiots.

If I could turn back the hands of time, then my darlin’ you’d still be mine. Funny how time goes by, and blessings are missed in the wink of an eye. Why should one have to go on suffering. When every day I pray please come back to me. I wish my book of life were written in pencil, there are a few pages I’ll like to erase. All the time spent in traffic and banking halls top that list. I remember the good old days when ‘snap, crackle and pop’ were sounds I heard from my cereal and not my body.

Hard to believe I once had a phone attached to a wall. When it rang, I’d pick it up without knowing who was calling. Amazing I’m still alive. I miss those days when I could just throw someone into the pool without having to worry whether they had their phone in their pocket. I miss the good old days when I used to do things instead of just reminisce and bask in the nostalgia. The best thing about the good old days was that I wasn’t good, and I wasn’t old.

Kids today are so weak. Back in the day if you were playing football and you stubbed your toe, you carried on like nothing happened. Essentially you tricked yourself into postponing the pain so that it can coincide with when your parents are giving you an arse-whooping for coming home late. Back when I was young, if you got into a car accident, you just died, and didn’t complain. None of this snowflake nonsense you see today. Kids crying because they lost a limb? Pathetic.

The good old days are now. In the good old days, you could go into a store with some change and get a loaf of bread, a crate of eggs, a watermelon and a brand new bike. But today, nope, you can’t do that. There’s just way too many surveillance cameras. Remember the good old days before Facebook, Instagram and Twitter? When you would take a picture of your dinner on disposable camera, go and get the photos developed, then go round to your friends houses and show them all the photo? No? Me neither. Stop it!

Cocaine, heroin, morphine, and opium? Oh, we called that medicine. Looking at an old picture and wishing you could go back to that moment. I still don’t understand why I was so excited to ride a bicycle. Now the thought of pedaling crosses my mind and I shudder. All that effort! Getting excited for ice cream is something I can get behind. Only to open the case and find lots of needles and different colors of thread.

Good days, bad days, and old days. The purpose of our lives is to be happy. Everything is changing, people are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke. As a nine year old, I remember thinking that kissing a girl would make her pregnant. Turned out I was right, even mere hugging could do the trick. Some days I wish I could go back in life. Not to change anything, but to feel a few things.

Twice

©️ Gottfried. All rights reserved

450 thoughts on “The Good Old Days”

  1. Ah yes … the ‘good old days’. The scent of grandma’s chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. Playing stickball in the street at sundown. Climbing trees, learning to catch fish with our bare hands. But then … cars with no seatbelts so that a crash was almost certain death. Hiding under our desks when the air raid sirens sounded. Having to iron every piece of clothing … mowing the lawn with a push mower that would break your back … hanging the laundry on the line and hoping those clouds above were empty of rain. Jim Crow laws. Lynchings.

    The past … some good, some not-so-good. Makes me wonder what life will be like in 50 years, when I’m no longer here to know.

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  4. I miss the good old days that our teens were emotionally and psychologically developed. I miss the good old days when love could be valued and security was so smooth(you could leave a child home alone for work) but now, its all a fallacy.

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  5. Gottfried, I enjoyed a nostalgic trip back to a more innocent time in my 65 years. Walking or biking to the small neighborhood store, having a quarter to spend, and finding treasures of sweetness. Today’s kids are missing out!

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          5. I was searching yesterday ways to tell stories with images. I will learn it within next 3-4 months. Building easy to understand and acceptable concept is challenging. I am taking enough time to think on in different perspectives. Thanks.

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