Ah Yes, The Good Ol' Days...Blech.

Someone over at the Wall Street Journal (or "The Journal", as I call it) is asking Why We Can't Stop Longing for the Good Ol' Days by 1) asking when exactly WERE those good ol' days?  2) surmising they've always actually sucked:

People have been longing for the good old days at least since the invention of writing in ancient Mesopotamia, 5,000 years ago. Archaeologists have discovered Sumerian cuneiform tablets which complain that family life isn’t what it used to be. One tablet frets about “the son who spoke hatefully to his mother, the younger brother who defied his older brother, who talked back to the father.” Another, almost 4,000 years old, contains a nostalgic poem: “Once upon a time, there was no snake, there was no scorpion…/The whole world, the people in unison/To [the god] Enlil in one tongue gave praise.”

There may actually be a more scientific reason, however:

One possibility is that we know we survived past dangers—otherwise we wouldn’t be here—so in retrospect they seem smaller. But we can never be certain we will solve the problems we are facing today. Radio didn’t end up ruining the younger generation, but maybe the smartphone will. We didn’t destroy the planet with nuclear weapons during the Cold War, but who can say for sure that we won’t do it this time around?

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “didn't you have some thoughts about nostalgia a years ago?"

Sigh. Yes I did faithful readers, YES I did:

I've always thought that we feel "nostalgic" for those moments juuuuust before we were fully aware of being able to revel in them. For example, I romanticize the Amerindie/Minneapolis early-mid 80s music scene, but in reality I was JUST too young to enjoy it in real time. Meanwhile, I feel no real longing or nostalgia for the Grunge Era, and yet any cultural historian would point to it as being the defining musical genre of my particular segment of a generation. I think we tend to kind of pooh-pooh the moments we actually live through, and romanticize the ones we've just missed.

And remember: while Happy Days is seen as the ultimate in nostalgia for "Weren't the 50s the best period ever?", The Fonz had his office IN THE MEN'S SHITTER AT ARNOLDS, FOR CHRISSAKE!!!!

"Hey, how 'bout a mercy flush - I'm workin' here!"