The title of today’s post comes from Billy Joel’s song “Keeping the Faith”. I know it’s hard for many of you to believe but not every musician I listen to is Dead! I spend so much of my time talking about how great the country “Used To Be”; I thought today I would talk about how great the country and the time we are living are today.
That’s right folks, I am going to be positive about America today and talk about the bad ole days.
Don’t get me wrong we have a lot of problems today and if we don’t fix them its only going to get worse. So let’s have a little fun and compare the old days to the new days:
Medicine – Let’s face it modern medicine is the best thing about living in 2014 vs. 1924. It’s really not even fair to compare, but I think Owen Wilson said it best in Midnight In Paris when asked to stay in the 1920s he said “Stay here in the 1920s, they don’t have even have Novocain.”
Music – Okay the popular music was better in the 1940’s and 1950’s than today, in 1955 you had Sinatra and Elvis, but you didn’t have Michael Jackson, Motown, Billy Joel and Elton John. Today we get to listen to them all so therefore it’s better today than 60 years ago.
Cars – Okay we go oooh and ahhh when we see a minted out 1957 Chevy drive by and whom a 1965 Corvette doesn’t excite? We all do, but did you ever drive one? They are dangerous, the handle like crap and ride even worse. Old cars a great nostalgia, but you wouldn’t want to drive one everyday.
Media & Entertainment – Like my comments on music, old movies are great my favorite Casablanca from 1942 and I believe there will never be a movie better. However look at the movies that I have seen in my lifetime in the theaters that someone who died in 1966 never saw:
- The Sting
- Arthur
- The Godfather Part I & II
- Jaws
- Animal House
With AMC, TCM, DVDs, and of course ITunes, we can watch movies from the 1920s through today. We have tremendous access to a huge family of films today.
Technology – Let’s face it today wins big. I am the first person to complain about social media and how people don’t communicate by talking to each other anymore, but you are reading my “BLOG” correct? I Tweet; I am on Facebook, and LinkedIn, so even though I prefer talking to people I love social media too. But forget about social media for a second. I have my entire music library on my iPhone 5s almost 4,000 songs. When I was a kid my bedroom couldn’t hold 4,000 records. Just the past 30 years has been amazing. When Reagan took office in 1981 VHS didn’t existed and today it’s outdated. In 1986 while working at Grumman Corporation my co-worker showed me this new machine it was called a facsimile. A FAX really, when was the last time you used a Fax?
Diversity – Can’t we all just get along? For the most part we do. Yes there are still stupid people in this world and you will never get rid of them. But just look how far we have come in a fairly short time. There is diversity all over the place, in the work force, neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, and government. We still have work to do we are not perfect, but can someone tell me what would happen if Michael Sam came out in 1974 instead of 2014!
So many things in our society are much better than 50, 60, 70 years ago, but we still have work and we lost a lot of the good. Over the rest of my life, I hope we regain some of those things and I will be preaching about them in future Blogs. So let bring back some of the things from the Good Ole Days:
- Class & Style – Men be Men and Women be Women. Let’s play dress up for no reason. Go out on a Saturday night and dress like you are going to a wedding.
- Men treat women with respect, open the door for them, stand up when a women approaches or gets up from the table
- Women don’t dress like a pig, dress like Cate Blanchett and not Lady Gaga, and don’t let men disrespect you.
- Communicate with each other – let’s bring back the conversation amongst people. Put the Phone Down!! On a recent vacation we made a rule for all meals “NO PHONES ALLOWED”
I know things are changing and a lot of that change is for good, but let’s not change for the sake of changing there are some great qualities in the old way of doing things. Just think how great we as a nation could become if we take the good from the old like helping out our neighbors and combining with the new good of diversity. Where people let people live their own life yet can accept that the individual for being different. I know that I am probably a dreamer, but I am going to end this post with a song and no its not Imagine by John Lennon. It is “The House I Live In” by Francis Albert Sinatra.