There is a Pit thread going on where several people have pointed out that ‘The Good Old Days’ weren’t all that good. It was also pointed out that there were also some good things back in The Good Old Days.
If you could bring back something – products, fashions, whatever – from The Good Old Days (whenever those were) such that they were once again common, what would it or they be?
I’ll start with something superficial: men’s hats. I want to wear a fedora. I also want to blend into a crowd for the most part. Alas, I can’t really do both these days. The suit-and-hat fashion for the professional gentleman was cool. Of course, dressing down is cheaper. Still, I’d like to be able to dress like the guys in the noir films.
ETA: Also, autmobile fashions (not saftety and reliability — just style) from the 30’s were awesome. I want a 30’s era convertible.
Higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, instead of expecting the middle class and poor to carry them on their backs.
Same thing I said in that other thread: I’m always hearing stories of how you used to be able to bring rifles to class to go hunting after school or whatever, and that there were shooting teams in high schools and that you used to be able to take your kids shooting and teach them gun safety without automatically being classified as a “gun nut”. It was a culture that wasn’t so goddamn afraid of guns. They were accepted as a part of life, and as a pastime. Way more people either grew up hunting, or served in the military, therefore people knew about firearms. This is something that should be brought back.
Also: doublets, codpieces, swords and parade armor.
Common sense. Common courtesy. Common decency.
I’d like to go back to the time before lawyers ran the world.
Everything mentioned so far, plus:
Travel as an Adventure in itself before you even got to the destination- so, a Flying Boat trip from Sydney to London (for example) would go via all sorts of exotic places like Batavia and Singapore and Bombay and Khartoum and Alexandria and Gibraltar and other places that enable one to wear a white suit and sit in a tropical bar drinking cocktails whilst being fanned by a punkah-wallah and socialising with the expats and well-connected locals.
Something from my childhood - I’d like to see milk delivered to the front door by a team of clydesdales pulling a cart, again.
Some of the styles–lately I’ve been reading some blogs that focus on vintage style and the good stuff was really good. Wouldn’t life be more fun if some of us wore such spiffy clothes? And that was normal and not weird?
The freedom that kids had to just go out and run around.
Martini Enfield: I can totally get behind the flying boat thing. I’ve often thought about how awesome that would be. When I was about ten years old there was a PBY-5A Catalina at the airport where my mom worked. I wanted one when I grew up so that I could fly off to the South Seas. Or a Grumman would be great. And I could probably handle a Seabee. But as a passenger on a Boeing Clipper would be a great way to travel.
And of course I’d be wearing my fedora.
I also like the idea of people dressing up. It came back a little in the '80s with some New Wave people. And remember the noir fashions of Blade Runner? On the other hand, I like the freedom to wear jeans and a T-shirt.
Pitchers of Bloody Mary’s in the board room at work. Liquid lunches. Martinis at noon.
From my personal good-old-days? Good Saturday morning cartoons. Disney ANIMATION… not CGI… I grew up in the Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast era. Actually DRAWN cartoons. Not that I don’t like the CGI stuff, but I miss the beauty and art of hand drawn animation.
I’d bring the dot-com bubble of the late 1990’s back to Silicon Valley. Those were the good old days. Sighhh.
Double-edge safety razors, shaving brushes, and shaving soap. The way men shaved in the 1940s.
I’ve discovered this manly art in the last year, and I love it. Takes just a little longer, but you feel like you’re doing something good for yourself. I get less irritation than a cartridge razor, the recurring costs are amazingly reduced, and there’s the feeling of being connected with a simpler, slower-paced past. Plus, people who visit and see my razor on the counter think I must really have some balls.
Funny you should mention that. Just this morning I was thinking I should find my safety razor.
The absence of cell phones.
Jello Pudding Pops
does that make me shallow? They were so tasty!
Burning piles of leaves in your backyard or the street gutter in autumn.
Seconding hats. Hats are awesome.
People dressing up for things.
Pogs, marbles, playing outside.
Technology that went out of its way to look mechanical and fancy, what with brassy polish and whatnot. Steampunk is trying to appropriate some of that look to our more understated gadgets, such as this laptop.
I’ve got one of those, and you’re right, it’s a very nice way to shave- very much an element of “Right, just let me shave, then it’s off to fight Hitler and thwart some Communists whilst I’m at it.” 
I do think Flying Boats are overdue for a comeback. I mean, there’s luxury rail travel, why not Luxury Air Travel as well? I don’t mean “First Class on a BA Flight” Luxury, I mean 1930s Style Luxury For The Discerning Traveller. Which means a Flying Boat. And complimentary pith helmets and fedoras for the gentlemen, and parasols for the ladies. 
