Those days of yore, oh days back there...I remember them well...
I was in the Air Force, then. Ironic but true: life was simpler. 1986. Who know it would be the best year of my life? I sure didn't. 21 years old, living in England, in love with an English girl (who loved me back). Reagan was president, and the military lived pretty high. Damned high and fine.
Was I at an age of permissible mindlessness? Was I overstimulated by sex, nothing more or less? But those aren't the primary questions - these are: Was the world better back then, even with the USSR of old? Were those definably better days?
Those were the days of yore; days we hardly knew. In England in 1986 push-button phones were all the rage, and I mean, think on that for a moment, let it sink in: push-button phones were just, just making their grand infiltration. It's an incredible thought. It's frigging phenomenal. The word-processing machine took up half an office, and faxing was still pretty snazzy, technologically. I feel like I'm recalling an age of leather-wrapped beasts shrieking their longing. But we were happier, then! I tell you, I've weighed these days and those days were better, they were richer, they were blisters, jewels from the sun! Objectively weigh them, let the gods sort it out, it'll be the same assessment, believe it!
Or:
Somehow, even admidst the hatred for the president that existed back in 1986 (not to mention Republicans) and communist/USSR paranoia and the rise of the militaristic American state - somehow, those were sweetest days of infant yore, compared to these, for...these days are mean, they have teeth...
(True story: came back from a mission and, with the per diem, bought a Daimler Sovereign, otherwise known as a Jaguar 4-door sedan. It would not start on a rainy day - in England, for God's sakes! Most untrustworthy car I've ever owned. Every time I got back from London, I thanked the god of the sector.)