Do you remember a time when times were good?

I agree that the late 90s were pretty good.

This has been a bitch of a time because everything costs so much. In the depression things were cheap, plus you had more family support. Now the support structure isn’t there. I also think people took better care of their neighbors back then.

My 90 year old gentleman friend told me once we have no idea what a real depression is. He was in elementary during the 1920’s depression and kids from neighboring counties which closed their schools were brought to his school so they could continue learning. Lucky for him, that’s how he met his future wife of 65 years.

My impression is that the Great Depression of years ago is worse, but I could be wrong

Yes. The Clinton years. People were making money, people weren’t spied on as much by their government, economy was better, no deficit, and – all we had to talk about was the curvature of the president’s pole.

Times were good in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Business was booming, interest rates were low and banks were giving out loans like candy. My construction-worker husband was raking in the dough. We went out to eat a lot, went on lots of vacations and bought a new house. I also bought a new car. I brought dinner home at least once a week – KFC or Famous Dave’s, or maybe ordered a pizza. Then my husband passed away in 2004, quite unexpectedly. I paid off the house and car with his life insurance, so things were still good financially until 2008. Then three of my four children lost their jobs and needed financial help. I am still okay but we aren’t living high on the hog like we used to.

Anything before December 19th, 2011 was a lot better.

The 60s. Married my wife, gas was 39 cents a gallon, bread was 29 cents, cigarettes were 35 cents a pack. a Coke cost 10 cents, rock and roll music was just beginning, a new VW cost less than $2,000 dollars and my paycheck lasted a loooooooong time.

Those times will never be again and I thank the Lord that my family and I lived in that time period.

One other note: what you are enjoying today, you had better live it to the fullest. These times will never be again. America’s history is now going in reverse and the good times are going to be no more.

Oh, I think things have improved greatly since the 60’s. In the 60’s, girls had to wear dresses to school. Houses had only one bathroom and no one had air conditioning. Teachers were free to beat their students at will. Females were not able to earn enough money to support themselves, so it was crucial to find some guy that would like you enough to marry you. I just remember being very stressed and feeling oppressed and degraded in the 60’s.

Times have always been good. Some times are better than others, and those times vary for most people.

The contrast from @john65pennington and @Skaggfacemutt concerning the sixties is interesting. It’s pretty cool that some things cost so little, but if it sucked like that for women, glad I wasn’t born then. My dad went to school in that time and yeah, he told me that teachers were free to get violent with the students. I just got yelled at school in the nineties, I prefer that lol.

For me, it was also the late 90s-early 00s.

Got married, made oodles of money, bought a house, travelled a lot, remodeled a house, adopted our daughter.

Yeeaahhup, yup, yup…good times.

@Symbeline That’s because he is male and I am female – and in the 60’s that made the difference between heaven and hell. I remember wanting to apply for a job as a flagman for highway construction because I knew I was capable and it was a job that paid enough for me to support myself and my little daughter. The company actually laughed at me! And told me that they don’t hire women. Can you imagine how many labor laws that behaviour would violate today! It is so wonderful to now see women not excluded from any profession.

Honestly, right now is a pretty great time in my life. I’m booked up solid with spending time with friends and working. My sleepless nights are because I’ve gotten in at 3 am after having an adventure with friends and not because I’m crying over a boyfriend or because I’ve just finished writing a paper. I’m writing more than I have in years. These are my good times. :)

When I was a child, in the 1950’s it seems a much better time, because my entire extended family lived within walking distance of our house. In those days, we never heard of child/spouse abuse, or home invasions. The news was very limited, so it was only later in life that I learned my little corner of the world was not the norm.

In the 60’s, I was involved in the love-in type hippie movement. No huge demonstrations for us, just flowers, back to the land and love.

Now.

In paragraph one you mentioned your kids 2x. . . sounds like you have bratty kids, LOL

@YARNLADY is it possible you didn’t hear about bad news on your corner b/c social media wasn’t as prevalent in every day life as it is now?

@mrrich724 I was a child, and ignored the news. We had one of the first TV’s in our town, and there were three channels. My Dad watched the news, but I didn’t pay attention. It was all about people far away that had nothing to do with us.

Ah, the ignorance of childhood. I do miss it sometimes.

Now is pretty great for me. I have a family that I couldn’t imagine being without, a career that I love, and the ability to pursue whatever interests I have at the moment.

For me it was the 60’s. I graduated from high school. I got a job earning enough to support myself. I had my own apartment. I got married during the 60’s & with both of us working we were able to do pretty well. I had my first child in 1967 & things could not have been better.

Times in the US were good after WWII and stayed good right up till the presidency of Ronald Reagan. His policies favoring the rich and a corporatocracy launched us on the long downhill slide, punctuated only by Bill Clinton’s presidency in the 1990s. I’m old enough to remember it all, having been born during the Great War.

Times are good now. I am happy in the present and looking towards the future.

For @ETpro , does it puzzle you as much as it does me, as to WHY Ronald Reagan is still held in such high esteem by so many people in the US? He did an incredible amount of damage to America’s economy with his “trickle-down” economics, his deregulation of banks & Wall Street, his tax breaks for businesses seeking to close down mfg in the US & open mfg plants in third world for the “Global Economy”, & tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. How can people NOT see the damage that he did to the US?

@Linda_Owl It absolutely does. Republican Herbert Hoover is generally listed as the worst US President, because the Great Depression happened on his watch. But it happened not because of actions he took, but because of a longstanding policy of laissez-faire capitalism pushed by his Republican Party. I absolutely think Ronald Reagan did more to destroy the US standing as a first-world nation than any other president in US history. He may have been likable, charismatic, and had great hair, But he was an abysmal leader.

@ETpro, Exactly! Now I just have to show that to the MANY people in my life whom think that he was “all that and sliced bread.”