Cased Borchardt on AA

[ithacaartist]

Originally Posted by MikeP

We never had a tractor on the family farm til my dad came home in 1946.

When asked about the good old days, the old timers I grew up around had it to be understood there were no good old days.
Penicillin was new in WW 2.

I think it's just like anything else...those that lived it knew. Most of America's small family farms used honest-to-goodness horsepower until the late 40s and early 50s. In the 70s, I worked for a while for a farmer who had started the John Deere dealership in Interlaken, NY.(formerly Farmerville) The yard by the main barn was filled with "retired" tractors and other equipment, almost all of it J.D. There were As and Bs that still ran, in a pinch. I spent a summer plowing with a 70, and did some fitting with the amazing Model R that ran with loaded duals. It needed a small gas pony motor to turn over the big diesel plant it had, instead of an electric starter. We'd measure out just enough gas for starting the pony in a Hi-C can because everything was old and leaky. It felt like I was navigating an ocean liner!

In skeptical circles, the phenomenon you describe is called the "good old days fallacy"--I kid you not. The irrational part of nostalgia takes over, and the good stuff is remembered well, and the bad, not so much--a kind of confirmation bias. But if the truth be known, I'd say the trade-offs make all periods, eras, regimes, and generations about equal. We may miss the good stuff and forget the bad, but there was still plenty of bad. And so it goes, from one generation to the next, each one thinking that life was better back whenever. I'm sure that our grand kids will pine for something they've only heard about from our youth, while not knowing about its downside!