While I was looking through old editions of the paper for the Times-News Time Capsule that you'll find on another page of this edition, I was struck by two headlines on a front page from 1975.
One was, “Thieves strike in four communities” and the other was, “Farm home ransacked.”
Now, headlines like those are in the old newspapers I look through all the time. Banks getting robbed, homes being burglarized, cars broken into and people just being generally not good.
Why do I bring this up? Well, I bring it up because, contrary to what some people might tell you, these things have always gone on, even in our small towns.
There seems to be a perception that everything was so much better “way back when,” bad things didn't happen and everyone respected their elders and knew how to act.
From looking through these old newspapers, that is not reality.
This isn't to harp on people who feel that way. I'm already guilty of it myself, and I'm only 24 years old. I have younger siblings who I lecture, and I feel that the young kids in school today are missing out on when life was better and everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be when I was growing up.
But the truth is, everything wasn't the way it was supposed to be and I'm just constantly daydreaming about the good stuff while ignoring all of the bad.
And maybe that's a good thing. It's good to be romantic about the past and allow it to inform our future. It's good to, well, focus on the good. The issue comes when you choose to focus on the good from your favorite era and focus on the bad today. There's still plenty of good if you're willing to look for it.
Just for fun, though, I'm going to share some of my “old-timer” criticisms of the present day and age. I won't explain them in depth; I'm just going to list them.
This new thing where it's OK to wear pajamas in public is lame. Looking like you just got out of bed doesn't make you nonchalant.
There's a proper way to dress at events like weddings and funerals.
Eat with your family at the dinner table and make conversation while doing so.
Even if there's an easier, convenient way to do something, it's good to do it the hard way sometimes.
Take care of your older relatives for as long as you can before shipping them off to a nursing home.
Life should be based around sacrifice, not self-love.
Children are more important than your career.
People used to have to be brutally murdered and conquered to give up their ancestral home. Now it's sold the second grandma and grandpa die.
If I missed anything that you're really passionate about, feel free to send in a letter to the editor. Maybe I'll expound on that list in future columns. Or maybe I won't. Regardless, I hope everyone's new year is off to a swell start.