I spoke with friends and asked them to revisit the Good Old Days. Look back to a time or place they experienced that made a lasting memory.

The experiences of those I talked with often involved others in those good memories. Perhaps a time when families were closer and spent time together. Before electronic games, cable TV with hundreds of channels, people shared the experience of joy on weekends with picnics and reunions. Most evenings the family meal was spent together talking over the happenings of the day. The experience of togetherness was a common response to my question.

For a couple of people, they smiled as they talked about life on the farm growing up. They were not above pointing out that although life on the farm brought back good memories, it also brought back memories of hard work and the struggles to keep a family farm alive. Those that remembered also acknowledged that the life they left behind, when they left the farm, has been lost in today’s world.

The good old days for some, were the experience of children playing. It was a time when people talked of how carefree they were in their play. Some talked of the good times at Bruce Park in the pool on hot summer days. They remembered when they cannon balled from the high dive and the sting of the cool water as they landed in the pool with a great splash.

Do you remember make believe times? For some, they remember playing Robin Hood in the woods near their homes. Or talked about when they, and their friends used to play circus in the street and the smile it brought to their face. It was a time when their world was made up of dreams of a child, and their imagination. Dreams that faded when we grew into adults.

For some I talked with, the Good Old Days are not so far away. For one man, the fact that nowadays when his car starts every time, is a good thing. He spoke of a time when cars we needed to get us around were not always dependable. Another person spoke of the technology computers give today. At the same time they wonder where AI will take us in the future.

There is no doubt the things we depend on each day have come a long way in being reliable. The dependability of those many electronic items around us is undoubtedly a good thing. When serious illness or injuries happen in our lives, the wonder of modern electronics makes it possible to recover more quickly. For those who answered that today’s technology is the good old days, they are correct. We all benefit from the improvements in the world around us.

Good Old Days can be the experience of sharing with others a piece of ourselves. Sharing a skill or ability with others is something special we each can strive to do. It may be to teach someone how to raise a garden and harvest the crops they grew. Or it could be the skill to build a treehouse for our children to have a safe place to fight off the bears and wolves in their make-believe world. Or it could be as simple as how to catch a fish.

Several years ago, I was sitting at the dam with a four-legged friend, named Ginger. She chased the birds as I watched the people fishing in the waters below the dam. After a while a gentleman that had been fishing came up the hill to retrieve something from his car. As the man passed, he spoke. “Fine looking dog you have there.” He was a pleasant man who was easy to strike up a conversation with. After a few minutes I posed my question to him about the Good Old Days.

He smiled and pointed down towards the river where two other men were fishing with him. “Now is the good times.” He told me that he was fishing with his two adult sons and how much that meant to him. He beamed a large smile and explained he had twelve grandchildren and they all fished. Over the next few minutes, he talked of family and a tradition of fishing together. I learned as I spoke of sharing a passion for something with family and the great satisfaction it can bring in someone’s life. The man took some time and introduced his two special sons to me that day. I realized it was not necessarily the fish they may have caught that made this special for them, it was they did it as a family.

The Good Old days can be the simple gift of sharing our lives with the people around us. As time passes that moment shared becomes a memory of special experiences in our lives that was made better by friends and family.

Why speak of the good old days and the joy we felt in the security of our country. Last weekend we all were reminded the good old days seem far away. Anger within ourselves and our country may be the only memories those in the future can understand, when they think back to what could have been the good old days Through the Lens.