Commentary: Robert Pawlicki - Nostalgia through the eyes of white males Robert Pawlicki FacebookTwitterEmail I recently had a conversation with four men describing the wonders of the “good old days.” How things were so good in our youth. How, in the 1940s, ‘50s, and even into the early ‘60s, life was beautiful. My friends reveled in their memories and wondered how things had gone so sour. They remembered that they were happy then, and our country seems in such turmoil now, so “screwed up.” For part of the conversation, I was quiet. Then, finally, after the other three had gone down memory lane, romanticizing the past and vilifying the present, a most enthusiastic friend asked my opinion. As a person who writes and teaches on happiness, he may have thought I would expand on their happy nostalgia.