I lived in the shadow of New York City across the river from it as a young kid back in the 1950’s. You could leave your car and house unlocked and be reasonably sure it would be safe. When a stranger walked down the street, people watched him, and he knew it. Kids treated adults with respect because they were adults.
But back then people who lived in a neighborhood controlled their neighborhood. Cops were paid decently and were respectable. Teachers were patriotic. And the worse thing that a cop or teacher could do was threaten to tell your old man you were misbehaving to keep you in line.
On Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day there were always huge parades of WW2 vets and entire towns turned out to fill the sidewalks to watch and cheer.
School started everyday with a reading from the Bible, the Lord’s Prayer and a salute to the Flag.
In High School we had a rifle team with a gun range in the basement and on opening day of deer season teachers took off to go hunting and so did students who went out with their dads.
The Warren/Douglas Court destroyed America.
It WAS a different world back then, and a much nicer one in many ways.
Sounds similar to the town where I grew up especially the school activity-salute to the flag etc. We still have teachers and students who take off to go deer hunting, but we don’t have a rifle range or anything like that.