Here are some old shots from my late uncle’s collection. They were taken in 1961, but they could as well have been from 1941. Nothing remarkable, just some guys at a bowling alley bar. It’s hard to say just why pics like these can’t be taken today; but they can’t. Is it the hats, the thin bow-tie with the short-sleeved white shirt, and the small beer glasses? Or is it something more – is it that these guys actually look happy?

People in bars today usually seem rather blaze. It’s hard to find a bunch of middle-aged guys together who actually seem happy anymore (at least if they’re sober enough to stand up, as with the guys in these pics). I’m definitely not saying that life was much better in 1961. There are a lot of things from 1961 that I’d definitely not want to go back to – racial segregation, no Internet, unchecked industrial pollution, no decaf coffee, lots more diseases without cures, high rates of poverty, the Cold War with the Soviet Union, a lot more people having a lot less freedom (including 50% of the species, i.e. women). On average, our nation is much better off economically and socially compared to then. And yet . . . . a shot like this tells me that something has been lost in the process. Is it that our society has become older and wiser, or just older?