Another thing I will always remember being raised outside the eastern city limits of Columbus, Ohio:
Being able to ride my bicycle to the movies and all around the edges of the city without fear. When I was 11 I could ride the bus to downtown by myself. No one feared lurking homosexuals who would prey on children as they do now.
As a newsboy I read the daily paper from front to back. There were no kidnappings, rapes or molestation of children. I’ve believed for some time now that the gross societal ills are due to the degradation effect of the internet and the vast infusion of pornography and the government sponsored sex (mis) education. This has created a pedophile infection.
We did indeed have slimy politicians; several even occupying the White House, but there was goodness in this nation and childhood was an exciting and innocent adventure that made many of us what we are today.
Of course in that era people with those tendencies were mysteriously sent away to institutions. Morals were as such that no respectable family would risk bearing the shame of deviant behavior amongst one of their own.