The good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems

Originally published 22 July 2016. When we look back at the past, all too often it’s through rose-colored glasses.

But who doesn’t like to indulge in nostalgia? I sure do. I especially enjoy photographing classic cars and reminiscing about times when they still roamed America’s roads. One of my favorites is the 1966 Ford, like this convertible I found at the Mecum auction in May. My dad owned one when I was small, a two-door hardtop. I spent many happy hours in its spacious back seat.

1966 Ford Galaxie 500XL

Check out that styling! This long, low car looks so purposeful, so strong. Aren’t those tail lights just the bomb? It’s so much better looking than the tall, blobby cars they make today. And they made these cars out of heavy steel. You could sit five people on the hood of this car! Man, didn’t things just make sense back then? Today’s cars are bodied in steel so thin that if you sink your bottom onto a hood, you will dent it.

1966 Ford Galaxie 500XL

But those wistful memories can’t mask the truth: you’re safer in any modern car than in this one. And it’s not just that this old Ford lacks airbags and has only lap belts. Fords of this vintage were famous for sloppy handling, making it hard to quickly steer to avoid a crash. And the brakes are drums all around, subject to fast fading during a hard stop. Oh, and see that steering wheel? It’s mounted to a rigid steering column. In a head-on crash, it becomes a missile that smashes into your face. In modern cars, that column collapses on impact. Also, in modern cars a safety cage frames the entire interior to resist crushing in a crash. That thin exterior sheet metal, along with everything else outside that safety cage, is designed to absorb impact and keep you alive and intact. If you had a serious accident in a ’66 Ford, the car would crush in, and you would absorb the impact. The safety advantages of modern cars are well documented; check out this head-on crash between a 1959 and a 2009 car to see it in action.

1966 Ford Galaxie 500XL

When we look back on the past, we often fall prey to nostalgic preferences and the fading affect bias. In other words, we tend to remember the past’s good parts and forget the bad. It’s human nature to forget that in a crash, an old car like a 1966 Ford would cheerfully maim or kill you, and that far fewer people die in crashes per mile traveled today than 50 years ago.

But this forgetting tends to make us think whatever bad things are happening now have sunk society to new lows. We live in a time of great national economic uncertainty, racial unrest, and global terrorism. The specter of authoritarianism and fascism has risen in this year’s Presidential election. We have a right to be worried, angry, and even afraid. But think back to any time in the past and consider national and world events then. Racial tension has always been with us and has led to violence at various times in our history. Terrorism has been going on for years, but until the last 15 years or so it was largely a problem only in the rest of the world. Our government, a magnet for narcissists, has always contained people who have committed crimes and immoral acts. And at various times in our collective memory, we’ve been at war, or in economic recession or depression.

Life is like riding a roller coaster. While you’re on it, it’s scary. You don’t know what is coming: tall loops, long drops, hard turns. Yet when it’s over, we look in a new light at the parts that scared us. Retroactively, we find them to be exhilarating — or, at least for those of us who don’t enjoy roller coasters, safely completed. What was unknown is now known and our minds reframe the experience accordingly.

We look upon past times like roller coasters we’ve ridden: reframed based on what we know now, viewed through nostalgic preferences and fading effect bias.

We face very real perils and need to address them squarely. But perils have always existed. Now is not necessarily worse than any time in history.

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Comments

11 responses to “The good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems”

  1. brandib1977 Avatar

    Someone once asked me when I would want to live if I had a time machine. The answer is now for these very reasons.

    I love antiques and vintage stuff for their design value and for the nostalgia. Old cars simply are more interesting than the modern boxes we drive today. What ever happened to the hood ornament anyway? Fifties fashion is glamorous and mid century home lifestyle sounds so much simpler to me than the busy lives we have today.

    However, at no other time in history would my lifestyle be possible. I’m single, a property owner with credit cards and a great job. I can get loans, I can date a black person if I choose. I could be a welder, a CEO or an astronaut as it’s much more acceptable for women to take on traditional male jobs. Heck, I have choices!

    When it comes to the hatred and divide I see in my country, it is clear that what we are hearing isn’t new. It has been lurking just beneath the surface for a long time. People are just more comfortable expressing themselves freely and allowing their nastiness to define them. I see it in my neighbors and in people who I always thought were decent people but who now rave and rant about the other side to anyone willing to listen. It’s like they’re preparing their troops for battle. My already small circle is shrinking and I am ok with that.

    It is the best of times and the worst of times, for sure.

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      It is my hope that what we are experiencing are the dying breaths of an old order.

      1. brandib1977 Avatar

        Oh boy, wouldn’t that be nice? Also, look at you being optimistic!

        1. Jim Grey Avatar

          Shhhh, don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain!

          1. brandib1977 Avatar

            Lol. Your secret is safe with me!

  2. Marc Beebe Avatar

    As always it’s a problem of forgetting to keep what we have that is good while improving or replacing what is bad. Having worked in the auto industry myself I have a few tales along those lines, but it doesn’t apply just to that one business or even only to business.
    My auto ‘perch’ as a child was above the engine in a 1958 VW microbus. Can you imagine any less safe four-wheeled contrivance?

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      When I was an early teenager, for a while our family car was a Chevy cargo van, into which my dad took the back seat out of some older van and just leaned it against the side wall. They’d arrest a man for doing that to his kids today!

    2. DougD Avatar
      DougD

      How much more pertinent this post is 5 years later.

      I love the VW microbus, but shudder when I see one. My grandfather and his family were nearly killed in a microbus crash in Ghana during 1979. My grandfather lost the use of one arm, his wife was initially left for dead but miraculously survived. My aunt (who was sleeping above the engine!) broke her arm.

      1. Jim Grey Avatar

        I remember riding in them in the 70s and feeling very vulnerable in them. But I accepted it as just the way things were.

  3. Steve Mitchell Avatar

    We live in interesting times indeed, and folk seem determined to hitch their wagon to a cause and burn lifetime friendships in the process. Politics, medical science, you name it….
    I learned to drive in a 1955 Chev. Worth a fortune now if you can find one for sale.
    The internet, which seems now to be an agent of division, also allows me to work in a way that was unheard of when I started my business (remember fax machines), but I also love old tech. In winter I cook on a wood stove, I mostly use film cameras, I like listening to music on vinyl, there is much from the past which is still valuable. It keeps me grounded I think!

    1. Jim Grey Avatar

      I used to live much more in the past than I do today. I’m not sure what changed.

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