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In These Trying Times…

May 17, 2010 By Jeff 46 Comments

You wanna know something that agitates me, mildly?  Oh, this one doesn’t rise to the level of people who back into parking spaces, or who stand in line at Burger King for five solid minutes, then have no idea what they want when it’s their time to order.

No, this is only a mild irritation… but it’s legitimate, I believe.  It bothers me when people say “in times like these,” or “in these trying times,” and stuff like that.

Yeah, I know the economy is sucking eggs right now (believe me, I know), but that doesn’t have much to do with it.  People have been saying these things all my life, regardless of the economic situation.  Every year I’ve been alive folks have been saying “in times like these.”

They also speak of “a simpler time.”  I think people just want to believe their situation, this one going on right now, is the most difficult and challenging in all of human history.  It’s never been harder, they’re convinced, except maybe during the Depression or a few of the major wars.  But even so… those were such simpler times.

Am I wrong?

Yeah, but if I stop and think about it, I’m not so sure previous decades were simpler at all.  In fact, a few of them were pretty damned complicated.

Yeah, I know we used to run free in the 1970s, without a care in the world.  But there was just as much crazy-ass crime back then, as today.  Maybe more.  We just didn’t know about it.

We didn’t have TV “news” shows in the old days, making parents paranoid and convinced every child will be kidnapped and murdered the moment they set foot off their front porch.  So yeah, simpler in a way.  But maybe we’re creating our own ridiculous complications?

In any case, I don’t have the time or energy to do any hardcore research, or anything.  But I’m going to list some previous decades below, and a few complicating aspects of each (off the top of my head), that we don’t really have to deal with today.

Ready?  OK.

1980s The AIDS epidemic, runaway crime rates, Knot’s Landing.

1970s The “misery index,” inflation, high interest rates, the humiliating Iran hostage crisis, ludicrous California singer/songwriter facial hair.

1960s Young people being drafted and sent to Vietnam, racial tension, social unrest, assassinations, escalation of the Cold War, hippies with an aversion to society’s stifling addiction to soap and deodorant.

1950s “Duck and cover” being taught to schoolkids as a way to survive a nuclear attack, Communist paranoia, bomb shelters, the Korean “conflict,” people saying stupid shit all the time, like, “What’s buzzin, cousin?”

1940s Men off fighting World War II, food rationing, Pearl Harbor, Normandy, everyone wearing suits and dress hats, even at baseball games.

1930s The Great Depression, rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, the Dust Bowl, kids passing the time by chasing a hoop with a stick.

These lists were rattled off very quickly (as I’m sure is obvious), and I need your help in completing them.  Please use the comments section below to remind us of the many complications of previous decades.

Or, if you don’t agree with my premise, tell us about that, as well.

And I’ll see you again tomorrow.

Have a great day, my friends.

Now playing in the bunker

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Filed Under: Daily

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. The Qweezy Mark says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    Suicidal Monday…..Yay!

    Reply
  2. Alice in WV says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:04 pm

    HIYA

    Reply
  3. Swami Bologna says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    Tres.

    Reply
  4. Kath says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    i cannot stand…. “now more than ever”…

    Reply
  5. GAPEACH says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    WOW, seriously! I am fourth?

    Well Happy twenty-eighteen to me! 🙂

    Reply
  6. t-storm says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    place!

    Reply
  7. Swami Bologna says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    And the “duck ‘n’ cover” paranoia continued right through the ’50s into the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. I can remember in the mid- to late-’60s in elementary school being taken down into the school basement, in the area marked with “Fallout Shelter” yellow and black signs, and told to sit down with our backs to the wall underneath the sewer pipe that ran along the wall about three feet off the ground, crouched down with our hands over our heads and our heads between our knees. I’m sure if the bombs had fallen, that sewer pipe would’ve been rattled off its brackets and dropped onto our fragile eggshell heads (sort of a Lizard King reference there, in honor of the ’60s). By the ’70s, people finally realized that those exercises were fruitless, ’cause if you survived the explosion, you were just going to die a slow and very painful death from radiation poisoning a few days later. So crushed heads would’ve been preferable. But the lingering paranoia of the Soviets launching all their nuclear warheads into America was still very much there right up until the Soviet Union fell. And after a few short years of “Peace Dividend” bullshit, the Taliban managed to bring us right back to fear and loathing and paranoia. Good times.

    Reply
  8. Skippy says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    Top Ten!

    Reply
  9. t-storm says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    i think it was simpler when you were a kid and then you grow up and have responsibilities.
    things are pretty simple for me right now. so i’m gonna say ten years from now, in simpler times, when i was 33….

    and on a more scatological note: a girl fist bumped me last night because I called out my drinking companion for having to go take a dump.

    Reply
  10. Becki says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    One thing changed my outlook as I left my childhood and entered my early 20’s. I remember this as the first time I was afraid of someone in the news as we were living here in southern CA in his turf:

    1980’s: the Night Stalker

    aka Richard Ramirez

    (my Father was the Deputy Coroner at the time and their paths crossed in court a couple of times. The ONLY criminal my Dad ever said struck cold fear into him and that just with a look. My Dad commented the guy is absolutely soulless . . … .)

    Reply
  11. Big bear in OH says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    The only simpler thing I can see through all those decades was that war was fought against an enemy in uniform– you knew who you were fighting. Now we fight guys who look the same as the guys we are trying to protect, and we have all these silly rules about how you can fight. The other thing that seems to be simpler back in the day is that you didn’t have to deal with lawyers as much! Seems like you have to be “PC” or you’ll get bitchslapped with a lawsuit for discrimination or unfair treatment.

    Reply
  12. Lee Harvey Ramone says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    1980s: Ronald Reagan, Hall and Oates

    Reply
  13. t-storm says

    May 17, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    it was simpler times when ronnie james dio was alive.

    Reply
  14. Alice in WV says

    May 17, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    “in these economic times” makes me nuts. at least throw in the word “difficult.”

    Reply
  15. Splen says

    May 17, 2010 at 2:57 pm

    When it comes to finances, because it’s easier for every lay person to micromanage their checking, savings, 401k, IRA, stock portfolio, pickle jar of cash under the bed, etc, it’s also easier to be swept away by up-to-the minute hysteria.

    Twenty-five years ago, you got the stock news from the morning paper, the local companies on the news, or by calling a number. Now, you can keep tabs on the market via every possible media source, and too many people consider themselves to be some type of ‘expert’. Markets go up and down, economies do the same, and over time they generally are for the positive, it’s only when you’re watching every second that the bad is amplified much worse than the good, and that’s why people armchair quarterback about how tough these economic times are compared to the past.

    Reply
  16. kenju says

    May 17, 2010 at 2:58 pm

    The 30’s and 40’s had no television or cell phones

    Reply
  17. SaucyDeb says

    May 17, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    I know life was simpler when all I had to worry about was running out of hairspray before I finished my giant, crispy bangs and blowing the tee-tops out of my 1986 Berlinetta..

    Hell, when I was in college in the 90’s it all seemed simpler! The Horny President was doing his thing, the cold war was over and all I had to worry about was making sure I had a good supply of beer, weed and condoms.

    I’m pretty sure “simple” is a relative term. It’s directly related to the most carefree times in your life. For people of my parent’s generation that were born in the early 1930’s (too old to be baby boomers, too young to be ‘the greatest generation’), I’m not sure what those carefree times were. I mean, they lived through the depression and WWII. They were raising families in the 60’s and 70’s (and had to wear butterfly collars and porn mustaches for God’s sake). In the case of my parents, they were retired in the 1990’s but that’s when I was living on their dime, driving up their insurance premiums, majoring in beer and minoring in boys, so that couldn’t have been a relaxing time period for them. Then came all the political and economic unrest of the new millenium…

    What’s the quote about being fortunate to have lived in interesting times? Yeah, it’s bullshit..

    Reply
  18. Gretchen says

    May 17, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    Opus: “Thank goodness for all the psychobabble self-help available….these certainly are tough times for people to cope with.”

    Milo Bloom: “Right. How easy they must have had it in the old days. Civil wars! Pestilence! Plague! Massive starvation! Slavery! Indian attacks! Man-eating bears! Emotionally, must’ve been a PICNIC!!”

    [Milo storms away]

    Opus: “Hey! They moved ‘Cosby’ to Tuesdays at eight! I WAS WOBBLY FOR A WEEK!”

    Reply
  19. Madz1962 says

    May 17, 2010 at 3:06 pm

    1970s: Elvis dies, Son of Sam, Blackout of ’77 (NYC), NYC on the verge of bankruptcy.

    Reply
  20. t-storm says

    May 17, 2010 at 3:12 pm

    1976 and 77 i was pissing and shitting myself daily. i couldn’t even feed myself.

    Reply
  21. Taiwan On says

    May 17, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    You’re not wrong Jeff. Nostalgia has a tendency to turn us all into some version of Andy Rooney. And that annoys the crap out of my outhouse.

    Reply
  22. CitizenX says

    May 17, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    I cringe when I hear .. “often times ”
    What is this 1813?

    Reply
  23. Juancho says

    May 17, 2010 at 3:42 pm

    Agreed. Life has sucked it from the ass in for somebody since day one.

    Reply
  24. Tammie says

    May 17, 2010 at 3:56 pm

    1978: The horror of sweating in a polyester suit my mother picked up a a yard sale and made me wear Christmas Day..it was tan and orange and baby shit yellow plaid…yeah….things aren’t so bad here in 2010….

    Reply
  25. johnthebasket says

    May 17, 2010 at 4:43 pm

    I miss Opus and Oliver Wendell Jones. I don’t itchingly pine for the Reagan administration, but the two were coterminous. May you live in interesting times.

    jtb

    Reply
  26. dto says

    May 17, 2010 at 5:11 pm

    I miss buying a three finger lid for ten bucks. No seeds and no sticks and stems garbage either. Much simpler times.

    Reply
  27. Ana says

    May 17, 2010 at 5:54 pm

    Amen!!!!

    Reply
  28. Chris says

    May 17, 2010 at 6:48 pm

    For the 80’s you forgot crack and gang violence.

    Also, the Raiders won a Super Bowl, talk about frightening times.

    Reply
  29. Ian the Errolite says

    May 17, 2010 at 7:01 pm

    Being a teenager in Scotland in the 80’s was a bit worrying at times what with Margaret Thatcher, the Cold War heating up, and Boy George.

    I don’t remember much about the 90’s and the 00’s were pretty good too.

    I reckon people say that things were ‘simpler’ in the past partly because there wasn’t so much information flying about to get your head round.
    Life does get complicated with so many choices!

    Also, is it just me or is ‘the news’ becoming more and more sensational?

    Reply
  30. Gretchen says

    May 17, 2010 at 7:13 pm

    “coterminous” I learned a new word today! And it sounds vaguely dirty! Woo-hoo, bonus points!

    2003: During a long spell of mono, and its subsequent lethargy, I gained some weight.* When I was finally able to be upright for long stretches of time I waddled over to JCPenney’s to get a sundress, for it was hot out and I couldn’t fit in anything but my winter weight fat pants. Alas, working under the delusion that I was still svelte, I grabbed the size I formally wore and, bubble butt be damned, wedged all my fatness into it.

    Then the zipper got stuck. Fast.

    After twenty minutes of violent struggling, during which I nearly dislocated my shoulder and put out both eyes, I bellowed, “Back fat, don’t fail me now!” and Hulked out of the offending sundress, leaving the tattered remains on the dressing room floor.

    That was a particularly low time, for me and the staff of JCPenney’s.

    *I soon got back down to fighting weight, thanks very much.

    Reply
  31. Greg says

    May 17, 2010 at 7:37 pm

    Gretchen ~ After I re-read your post, and figured out what “Hulked out” meant, I busted up laughing. Glad you’re back down to fighting weight!

    Reply
  32. Gretchen says

    May 17, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    Greg: Thanks!

    Reply
  33. t-storm says

    May 17, 2010 at 8:27 pm

    good visuals gretch.

    on an unrelated note somebody macaroni and beefed the mexican restaurant i was just at.

    Reply
  34. icecycle66 says

    May 17, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    I prefer to think of the neutral future. Not how the past was so gee willikers great, or how the present is Bermuda butt-raped; but how the future is neutral.

    When someone begins to pine over the good’ol days and bitch and moan about how we are all dying a stale smelly death today; I long for the days not yet passed and how beige they will be. Simply complex and full of cooperating conflicts of paradox and stagnant perpetuation of motionless activity.

    Ah the neutral days.

    Reply
  35. johnthebasket says

    May 17, 2010 at 9:33 pm

    I would go to significant lengths to keep a promise, but this has now become a legal matter.

    Does anybody know how to get ginger ale and grape juice (really a quite refreshing drink) off of a 21″ flat-screen monitor?

    For evidentiary reasons, I will disclose that the spit-takes followed the words “Fast.”, “both eyes”, and “Hulked out”. Yeah, three spits. I will admit to some culpability on my part for taking too big a sip, but how was I to know it wasn’t going to just be more Morcheeba lyrics?

    Young lady, this time your clever prose has landed you in legal limbo, although I’m willing to bend over backwards to aviod a suit. I’ve avoided them for the last four years and, although I feel like an old man, I feel like a new man.

    Please hold up a damn flag when you move from the charming to the hilarious so I can empty my mouth and gird my loins. Lord knows my loins need girding.

    Litigiously yours,

    jtb

    Reply
  36. Gretchen says

    May 17, 2010 at 10:13 pm

    JTB: I guess your grape drink and your TV are cotermingling. 😉 Seriously though, thanks for the accolades. You’re gonna make me get a fat head and think I can have my own blog or something. Then I’ll have to Hulk out of my hats. We can’t have that.

    Reply
  37. squawvalleyskip says

    May 18, 2010 at 12:31 am

    t-storm,
    In ’76 and’77 I was doing pretty much the same thing. Need I mention I was 21 years old, nearing the end of my distinguished 4 year military career, and having too much fun? Ah, the good old days. Times were simpler then. I think. Truth be told, I really don’t remember.

    Reply
  38. clintcurtis says

    May 18, 2010 at 2:42 am

    Yeah, it’s the “in simpler times” thing that makes me laugh. A lot of people point to things like “a Coca-Cola only cost a nickel back in 1923!” Yeah, but when you consider that the average hourly wage was like $1.00 per day…how much Coke would you really be drinking. Add to that, your odds of making it to the age where you could actually buy a Coke were significantly diminshed if you died of influenza, smallpox, polio, or tuberculosis.

    As bad as it was, there were probably people back in the 1920’s saying, “Gee, things were sure a lot simpler back in the Dark Ages!” Ahh, the good ol’ days.

    As for me, yeah, life always has its up and downs. The one thing I am truly grateful for now is the advent of dentistry that doesn’t hurt! Well, online porn is cool too…but painless dentistry from a guy whose first dentist may have been Anne Frank’s orthodontist at Auschwitz has to be at the top top of the list.!

    Reply
  39. johnthebasket says

    May 18, 2010 at 4:18 am

    My 21″ monitor is my computer monitor, not my TV. I’ve tried a plastic ice scraper, duct tape, and WD-40, using a roll of paper towels in support. (I’m a man…how did you expect me to try to clean my screen?)

    With little result. Every Web site I visit looks like thebloodofchrist.org and my home office looks like a toilet paper factory attacked by a malevolent threshing machine. Every male displayed is right out of a Tarantino film, and every female looks like Carrie at the end of the film.

    I was going to enjoy some soft-core porn, but each video appears to be “Necrophiliac Zombies Sustain Compound Fractures”. And no, I don’t find that arousing.

    Next: Pressure washing.
    .

    So I’ll just say this and -30- myself out of here: When you write that well, people are going to notice, and maybe compliment you. You strike me as a little too balanced to not know you write well or to let the resultant responses swell your head. But I’ll “go quiet” again so your millinery budget won’t bust the bank.

    jtb

    – 30 –

    Reply
  40. Alex says

    May 18, 2010 at 7:59 am

    And just whats wrong with backing into parking spaces?

    The good old days… when parking lots and streets where less congested. Heh.

    Reply
  41. fryguy says

    May 18, 2010 at 9:19 am

    hey Alex, I agree, I back into parking spaces all the time. sure is a lot easier than backing out.

    anyone else see that the world got more complicated about the time they allowed women to vote or is it just me?

    Reply
  42. Gretchen says

    May 18, 2010 at 9:57 am

    Clintcurtis: Painless dentistry? I don’t know what dentist you go to, but mine still causes plenty of pain. Why just yesterday she drilled down some high spots on a crown of an inflamed tooth, sans novocaine, and immediately this song popped into my head:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOtMizMQ6oM

    She’s promised that if I need a root canal I can be sedated, but I wonder if anything short of rhinoceros tranquilizers will be enough.

    Though come to think of it, I did have a dentist in the 70s and 80s who once said to me: “Pain elevates one to a higher level.” I seem to remember reaching far more “higher levels” with him than the current one.

    Reply
  43. Gordion Knott says

    May 18, 2010 at 10:22 am

    >hippies with an aversion to society’s stifling addiction to soap and deodorant.

    You nailed this one, brother.

    Unlike the Phish-attending hippies of 2010, with their aromatherapeutic soaps and “organic” shampoos, the hippies of yesteryear (the 60s) reeked. It was all about the natural body odor, baby. Pass one on the street, and you were enveloped in a fog of sweat, unwashed clothing, and stale smoke from the Kools or Winstons that hippies smoked with abandon. Lack of bathing defined hippiedom more than any other signifier, and was seen as a countercultural badge of honor.

    Of course, the natural smell of a washed body was almost unheard of in society at large. Many people scorned deodorant (and toothpaste), clothing and rooms reeked of cigarette smoke, and people lathered on the perfume (and cologne) to mask the smells–Chanel no. 5 for women, Hai Karate for men.

    Reply
  44. Robert says

    May 18, 2010 at 10:54 am

    Simplicity was thrown out the window when the idea of ownership became popular back in the simpler times. Once humans developed a taste for “owning” things that were “theirs” and nobody elses, it was only a matter of time before things like money and jobs and riding lawn mowers which were bigger than your neighbors made things “complicated”. Add in things like politics, and you’ve eliminated any hope of returning to any kind of world where we can get by living “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”….

    Reply
  45. Drug Delivery Guy says

    May 18, 2010 at 11:29 am

    @clintcurtis – Did you grow up in Central WV in the 70’s? Because you described my dentist, who was also the announcer at WVU football games, who had horrible teeth! I can still feel the high-pitched drill slicing over and over in to the nerve, tears rolling down my 10-year old face. I never had dentist use any anesthetic until adulthood.

    @t-storm – you win for belly laugh of the day from me, but I’m always impressed with the humor and writing in the comments.

    Reply
  46. Shiny Rod says

    May 18, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    Chasing the hoop with a stick wasn’t bad except for when my older brothers would roll it into oncoming traffic with me chasing it.

    Reply

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