It's the End of the World as We Know It...

     I am so tired of hearing about the good old days.  It has become a rallying cry for extremists of every race, nationality, and political persuasion.  Believe me, the good old days never really existed at all, and yet they existed for every one of us(no, I have not been drinking).  We hear a lot about returning to a simpler time, a time when things moved slower and people got along with each other.  But ever since man could pick up a stick, there have been wars, theft and conflicts of every sort.  Every generation thinks it is witnessing the end of the world as they know it, and they're right.
     If you think the 1940's were a golden era, then I invite you to remember the tarnish of nazism(I refuse to capitalize nazism as my spellcheck instructed me to do), concentration camps, WWII, and, here at home, violent racism and abuse against women and children that was not only tolerated, it wasn't even illegal. 
     The 50's were just as bad, with the Korean war, Chinese expansion, communist aggression, and in our own back yard, McCarthyism and continued harsh oppression of minorities and women.
     In the 60's, civil rights improved for some, but Vietnam, rampant drug use(mild by our terms), casual sex, and anti-war protests seemed to signal a collapse of the peaceful society that our grandparents had known.
     The 1970's saw the oil crisis and Mideast turmoil that gave birth to the modern terrorist movement as we know it.
     And now for our time(my friends and 40-something-year-old compatriots).  The 80's, by far my favorite decade in American history.  I was 12 in 1980.  I went to middle school, high school, graduated, and began my adult life in this era(accompanied by some of the best music music ever made, I might add).  But the cold war, fear of nuclear annihilation, gang violence, and aids all scared me to death.  I had more than my fair share of nightmares where the last thing I remember seeing before I woke up with a start was a brilliant flash and a mushroom cloud. 
     Americans have never known a time that wasn't full of great upheaval and constant worry.  The good old days don't belong to a particular era or decade.  They belong to all of us.  We call them our childhood.  When the world was only as big as your neighborhood, and punishment was handed out by someone who loved you.  Of course we all want to go back to this, but it's gone for good.  The saddest thing to me is that one day my own children will have to live in the grown-up world as it's always been; full of work, worry, loss, and uncertainty, just like every one else who's come before them.