In her Nov. 3 op-ed, “Nostalgia needs a reality check,” Megan McArdle wrote that Midcentury appliances and air travel weren’t as glamorous as nostalgists imagine. We asked readers, “What beloved relic shouldn’t be romanticized by people today? Or what really did live up to modern hype?” Here are some of their responses.
In her Nov. 3 op-ed, “Nostalgia needs a reality check,” Megan McArdle wrote that Midcentury appliances and air travel weren’t as glamorous as nostalgists imagine. We asked readers, “What beloved relic shouldn’t be romanticized by people today? Or what really did live up to modern hype?” Here are some of their responses.
Conservatives wish they could live in the 1950s, people say, while liberals wish they could work there.
I wish I could take them all back to the 1950s for a day. They would see what middle-class life looked like then: a thousand-square-foot house with one bathroom and one telephone. A single car in the driveway, equipped with headlights and wipers that would make them wonder how anyone drove on a rainy night. A family budget that made a restaurant meal or a long-distance phone call a special treat.
And those much-vaunted union factory jobs? Many were dirty, dangerous and physically punishing. I note that blue-collar folks today are far less enamored of such jobs than the populist poseurs in Washington who promise more of them. Our manufacturing sector reports hundreds of thousands of unfilled openings.
Michael Smith, Georgetown, Kentucky
When I was in grad school in the mid-’80s, my husband bought me an “electronic typewriter.” I had many papers to write and was very happy that this monstrous machine would make my life easier. I had two young daughters, so I did all my work after I put them to bed. I would start typing, and lo and behold I would made a mistake. I had to use correction liquid or correction tape. Invariably, the tape did not cover the entire letter or the liquid looked like a mound of white with a letter embedded in it. As I am a perfectionist, neither was acceptable to me. I had to rip the entire page out and start again. Imagine when this happened in the last line of the page.
I am writing this on my iPad, which enables me to type quickly, before a thought escapes my mind. Errors are underlined in red, and all I have to do is put my finger on an error and choose the correct replacement. What a pleasure! No, there is not a bit of nostalgia about a hunk of metal that did not bend when I made an error.
Graciela Greenberg, Hartsdale, New York
Midcentury toasters are even better than we remember. Chrome. Solid. Long-lasting.
Automobiles were beautiful pieces of rolling art but awful in every other way.
Bart Millar, Bellows Falls, Vermont
As kids, we were expected to dress for school. Key word: “dress.” Being a girl in the 1960s and ’70s was not a good time here in rural Michigan, where the winds at recess whipped across bare legs when there was no time to pull on snow pants — only our coats. Most of us, in our wool skirts and sweaters, just stood up against the building and shivered, but we sure looked good when we got back inside! Back-to-school shopping for clothes was an event, and we couldn’t wait for colder temps so we could wear those outfits. The boys, meanwhile, could and did come in like they had just done farm chores. Ah, the good old days of a double standard.
School dress codes are looser now, but ironically, I see kids wearing shorts in the winter and some not even wearing jackets. They have them; I know their parents. They want to be cool.
Marian Latimer, Brown City, Michigan
Autumn colors, deep-blue skies, dark-sky nights, the cacophony of birds and bees, eruptions of butterflies, frozen ponds and lakes to skate on all winter, rainbows of coral reefs and the tropical fish schooling all around them.
Alex Hawiger, Boston
Neighborhood schools within walking distance have taken a backseat to the goal of financial accountability. Putting kids in a can feels safer to parents who see kidnappers behind every tree, and fewer schools cost less money, but no wonder our children increasingly struggle with well-being.
Letitia Richard, Strongsville, Ohio
The proof is in the resurgence: Two things that remain the best are LPs and reel-to-reel tape recording.
Ruth A. Eckelmann, Amado, Arizona
Some things really were better in 1950s America. For most of the middle class, inflation was low, jobs were pretty stable and employment was long-term. U.S.-built appliances, tools and household goods were generally high quality and had good warranties.
Some things really were worse. Most schools were racially segregated, either de jure (in the South) or de facto (in Northern big cities and suburbs). The nuclear sword of Damocles hung over our heads. Gerrymandering was widespread, and Republicans and Democrats were often hard to tell apart: The Democratic “Solid South” was solidly racist, and Northern Democrats were covertly racist; Republicans ranged from liberals like Nelson Rockefeller to the near-fascist John Birchers.
Stuart Flashman, Oakland, California
There used to be an ashtray in every armrest on an airplane, and passengers could light up in flight. Later, there were smoking-only sections on a plane, as though that mattered, as everyone smelled like smoke when deplaning.
Rick Meidlinger, Ashburn
Regarding the Nov. 7 Politics & The Nation article “Off-year elections show a path to power for Democrats”:
I was very active in the Alexandria chapter of OneVirginia2021, the group that got the redistricting constitutional amendment through the General Assembly and passed via referendum in 2020. At the time, some of my fellow Democrats asked why we were “unilaterally disarming” by choosing to redistrict through an independent commission. I argued, idealistically, that the only way out of the cynical gerrymandering swamp was to set an example by adopting the fairer approach and then working to see that other states followed along.
It is clear now that my friends were right. The custom of redistricting only once a decade is just another of the essential norms that President Donald Trump and his enablers are trashing. So Democrats need to fight fire with fire.
In doing so, the proposed amendment from Virginia Democratic legislators adopts the least combustible approach. It retains the process adopted in 2020 but provides that if some other state has redistricted before the next decennial, the General Assembly is authorized to revise the maps adopted by the commission. This new system would expire in 2030.
Advocates in the 2019 case Rucho v. Common Cause warned the Supreme Court that if it did not hold partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional, the practice would run rampant. They, too, were right.
Jamie Conrad, Alexandria
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