Dad used to reminisce about the good old days when Everton won the old first division championship and the FA Cup back in the 1970s and 80s but they weren't quite so good when I started supporting them.
No one tells you that your life is effectively over when you have a child: that you're never going to draw another complacent breath again... or that whatever level of hypochondria and rage you'd learned to repress and live with is going to seem like the good old days.
There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.
When I started studying architecture, people would say, you know, 'Can you tell me why are all modern buildings so boring?' Because, like, people had this idea that in the good old days, architecture had, like, ornament and little towers and spires and gargoyles, and today, it just becomes very practical.
In 50 years, I don't think you're gonna look back at 2006 and say, 'The good old days.'
In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.
I am just pitifully nostalgic. I can't help but roll my eyes at myself frequently. I mean, I still shoot black-and-white film. And I am constantly reminiscing about the 'good old days.' I'm 28 years old. There haven't even been that many 'good old days.' But still, I love to look back.
One of the things you learn in football is that you're only as good as your last outing. I don't like to reflect on what we've done in the past. I'm not a very good storyteller, for one thing. I'd disappoint you. When it's time, I'll talk about the good old days. But it's a sign of old age, reveling in the past.
When there's so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you've already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?
Eventually, competition and adventure wane, and I enter my ibuprofen phase. Tweaky hamstrings and achy knees restrict mileage, but I continue running for health, sanity, and the ritual of a Sunday trail run with like-minded buddies. We discuss the nagging injuries that bedevil us, and remember the good old days when we were kings.
