Was it Really Better Back Then?

 

 

[image error]

The novel I’m writing now is set in October, 1962. The working title is “Stolen Treasures.” To prepare for this, I’ve been reading and watching everything I can about life in the late 50s and early 60s. I was alive during that time but very young (born in ’57). It’s been wonderfully refreshing to remind myself about the way things were “back then.”

I’m speaking specifically of the time in American history just before the JFK assassination which, to me, was a pivotal point that changed everything. It seems like the time between WW2 and that horrible day in Dallas in 1963 was a golden era for the US in some ways, a time when life was much more simple and safe, families mostly stayed together and the air was filled with hope and the future bright.

Reading and watching all of these things about that era has mostly reinforced what I’ve remembered as a child. I was talking with Cindi recently, after watching yet another bizarre thing on the news, and said I believe that if you took someone from that time period and brought them forward to today, gave them the grand tour, they’d never believe it was possible for things to get this bad.

It’s really just been fifty years. But in these fifty years the country has changed drastically and dramatically in so many fundamental ways. Other than the wonderful new gadgets and gizmos technology has brought us and some of the amazing medical breakthroughs, it seems most of the changes have made things much worse.

I don’t think this is merely a matter of my own opinion. I think many surveys and national statistics support this observation, that we are deteriorating as a society not improving.

Having said that, I’m forced to admit another sad observation about “back then.” It wasn’t such a golden era if you were a minority or a woman. The civil rights movement that exploded in the 60s did so precisely because blacks were treated so poorly and unfairly, and had been for so long. Women also were often treated badly, sexually harassed at work, unable to get many jobs they were capable and qualified to do, often paid much less than men doing the same things. And housewives were often treated as second-class citizens by their own husbands.

Jeepers Wally, I kinda forgot about that.

So what do you think, was life in America really better back then?