[The America I grew up in no longer exists]
It is gone. And it will never return. I would prefer to be wrong. It’s just not possible to go back now. Not with the general stupidity that abounds.
I’m afraid you are right- Was watching a very interesting documentary on Automats back in the early years through the 70’s when the last ones closed- and wow- what a huge difference America was back then to what it is now- they showed how it degraded over time and towards the end bums and drug addicts were hanging out in them doing all kinds of whacked nonsense like running round nude terrorizing folks, puking etc- because the new owners didn’t manage it well anymore- it really went downhill with new management who thought they knew better than the original owners- but before that happened- it was like a real community and a great place to get lunch or dinner or whatever- for a very cheap price, even by yesteryear’s standards- lots of food too for next to nothing-
we didn’t have all the tech back then, but we sure did have a wonderful life and society was quite a bit different, at least in our neck of the woods- i was raised about when it was starting to get bad, but it took a long time, but then aroudn the 1990’s onwards, it got real bad real quick, and hit warp speed when obama took over- now it’s an ugly society most everywhere- with just a few holdouts in really rural areas- hanging on by the skin of their teeth to keep what they loved about America