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

The joys and limits of nostalgia, and why making predictions is a waste of time. Then I make some predictions.

Billy Joel was on to something in his most underappreciated song, “Keeping The Faith.”¹ In our younger days we didn’t appreciate how good we had it, but as we get older we kind of overcompensate and look back on them as being even better than they actually were. We remember the best parts and push aside the bad stuff.

Last week I finally got around to watching Threads, the 1984 BBC nuclear war movie that makes The Day After look like Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, and it made me remember what I was worried about during a time period about which I now fondly reminisce. Stranger Things gets a lot of details about the period correct, but the all-pervasive fear of seemingly inevitable nuclear conflict is absent.²

I remember this book traumatizing me more than anything else from my childhood. Well, aside from Polkaroo, anyway.

The seventies were a famously malaise-ridden era of stagflation, high gas prices and truly hideous clothes, which Ricky Cobb somehow makes look like a non-…