Norman Rockwell days again?

Question

Will the USA ever see the Norman Rockwell days again? Or anything close to it? What wiould it take to get us back to that?

It was the grandparents and great grandparents that sweated and built this country and the beautiful downtown cities. They gave us the good ole days because of their sweat and getting their hands dirty

Answer 1

We all look back nostalgically to "the good old days," but there was a downside to them.

Polio was a real concern for parents until Dr. Jonas Salk came up with a vaccine for it. In some parts of the country, there was racism so entrenched that there were laws enforcing it. Cancer was practically a death sentence and women were expected to just stay at home to cook and clean and raise children.

One thing is a constant, and that is change. My grandmother recalled the era of the 1910's as a golden age, despite the fact hat her parents took her out of school in the eighth grade and her mother wasn't able to vote. My mother's memories were mostly of World War II, which has with a deal of justification been called "the last popular war" because the support for it was overwhelming, but there were still the women who were left to raise their children alone because of a husband killed at the front, and the stresses of GI's coming back--as they do from any war--missing limbs and sometimes even more deeply wounded emotionally.

Everyone filters the past through a lens that sometimes makes it seem much better than it was, but the fact remains that we can't go back. In a lot of ways it's a good thing; however, I must confess to wishing my kids had been able to live as I did growing up, spending long days just ambling all over the place and knowing no fear but that of not being home in time for supper.

Answer 2

I love it when people think that there were "good ole days." I can point to any decade where America was not so good. If there is any good to be pointed in the America, it is in the hearts of those who tried to make the best out of life and the bad situations that existed. We are a nation of survivors. But there were never those sweet days when every thing was so great. Things don't happen, without something that caused it. What is going on today, was coming through fruition for many years. It's a good thing that those rose colored glasses are coming off, and they shouldn't be put back on. It's time for all Americans to get their hands dirty and get a headache, thinking about how to remedy the messes that this government has created from slavery onwards to the mess that goes on in Iraq. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It's time for us to admit our failures and make real progress to amend the wrongs of the past, to move onward. Once we are correct, and God sees that we are making God-honest moves without violence and terror, we will see change in the world.

I'd like to add that I saw a Norman Rockwell exhibit here in New York a few years ago, and even Norman Rockwell wasn't as sentimental as you are picturing him to be. His work is very thoughtful and deep and at times did show the ugly of society, but also showed how strong we are to survive the mess that has gone on, especially in the 1950s.

Answer 3

Outside that lovely picture of (example) the family sitting down for thanksgiving dinner, with grandma laying out the turkey platter, and grandpa ready to carve it up... down the street is a boy laid up in bed with polio, or another suffering from an infection, who will die in the hospital before Christmas.

Mr. Rockwell painted a lovely picture of the good things in American life, but there were still a lot of things I wouldn't want to live through back then.

...Just something to think about.

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Answer 4

Unfortuneatly we have come too far technologically to ever go back. Memory is a selective thing and when we look at those "days gone by " pictures we remember only the good things. Perhaps if we all slowed our lives down, got off of the computer and away from the TV and enjoyed more of the simple things in life, we could at least gain back some of that time.

Answer 5

Unfortunately technology is taking over your Rockwell days. And it gets worse every day...

Answer 6

I don't think that the world that he portrayed ever really existed. In reality, at the time that he was painting those painting, the Irish mafia pretty much controlled NYC, and people were so dirt poor that they ate rats, which they called "Hoover Hogs".

Answer 7

Only if Norman were here.