When they promo a TV series set in your own lifetime as “a period drama.” Yeesh!
When I was a little boy, we had these decorative plates on the wall of our dining room–plates showing a family from the Gay Nineties: handlebar mustache, mutton-chop sleeves, high-button shoes, the works. Like, wow–it’s the Cretaceous Period! It never occurred to me that I knew and interacted every day with people who had lived during that remote epoch of history. I mean, it was less than 60 years ago. So if you were born in 1880, you’d only have been 70-something.
But all of a sudden part of your own life winds up in a period drama–like you used to hang out with Robin Hood or Ramses II. The show is set in 1970. Ooh! Were there still pterodactyls then?
Oh, I miss my pogo stick!
It was a happy time to be alive. Sure, there were problems, but it seemed that people got less frustrated when I was kid (30’s and 40’s). I never heard anyone complaining much. Maybe, one reason was that there was so little “entertainment” available, and large families would gather together and enjoy some fellowship with great food, share needed items, etc. There was not a whole lot of political talk, which helps, too.
It seems that all of the “improvements” of the last 5 decades or so have had negative side effects. We have more materially, but we are much poorer in many ways.
The most celebrated film of 2019 is “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” set in the 1960’s.
As far as my kids are concerned there were! And dirt was new, too. The thought that we didn’t have laptops, cellphones, and TV on demand is like something out of a horror film to them. We’re just neanderthals I guess. 🙂
It’s an electronic wilderness out there. I’m so glad I was a kid in the 1950s! I wouldn’t trade it for anything.