From "Cincinnati Times-Star", January 19, 1932
When were the good old days? An exhaustive (yeah, sure) survey of Cincinnati news media for the past decade indicates that more than 65 percent of recent uses of the phrase, “good old days” involve sports and refer to that long ago time when your team had a winning season. But it depends on whom you ask.
In 1997, for instance, Enquirer columnist and editorial writer Pete Bronson longed for the good old days when Cincinnati’s corporate oligarchs made all the decisions and votes didn’t matter because, as Pete said [November 9, 1997]:
“There is no problem in Cincinnati that cannot be made worse by voters . . . It’s enough to make me long for the good old days when Cincinnati was run by and for corporate CEOs. Bring back the Cincinnati Business Committee – or something like it.”
To the contrary, the Enquirer, almost ninety years earlier [October 4, 1908], quoted a voter who recalled the good old days as those in which his vote really counted, because he voted 44 times on one election day!
“Man alive, there were 44 precincts in the city then, and I voted in each and every one of them, and not once was there a question asked. Yes, sir, I chucked in 44 ballots, licked seven men and then headed the torchlight procession in the evening.”
Well, the food was better good old days, or so they say. Anne Hartley Gilbert, a British actress who gained fame on the American stage, was still active at the age of 80. During a tour through Cincinnati, she told the Post [December 5, 1902] that she fondly remembered the Cincinnati hams she had tasted fifty years previously from Bartholomew Cavagna’s grocery on Fifth Street.
However, 67 years later, the Cincinnati Post [February 7, 1969] declared 1910 to be the good old days, based on a menu preserved by Bill Glazier, manager of the Colony Restaurant, then located in the Mercantile Library Building. Before the Colony took over that address, it was home to the old Bismark Café, and the Bismark’s 1910 menu cataloged 340 dishes, including 25 unique oyster specials, 25 soups, 32 fish dishes and 32 featuring game, 58 vegetables, 33 salads and 19 entrees.
Roll back another three decades, and the good old days were very easy to define—those halcyon times before the scourge of Prohibition. As beer once again flowed in Cincinnati, the Times-Star [April 7, 1933] asked Dr. William H. Peters, commissioner of health, whether the sudsy stuff was healthful. Dr. Peters responded:
“Good beer is a refreshing, invigorating drink. In the good old days Cincinnati was famous for the quality of her brew.”
A fair amount of nostalgia involves, it appears, alcoholic beverages. The Times-Star [May 27, 1927] remembered the good old days when cocktails such as the Flip, the Black Strap, the Mimbo and the Calibogus were dispensed in our taverns. The Enquirer [January 31, 1871] identified the good old days as those before distillers learned to put poisons into rectified whiskey. Several decades on, the Enquirer [October 1, 1904] was still thirsty.
“In the good old days in Kentucky almost every large-sized spring was the site of a distillery, on which the grain raised in the immediate neighborhood was distilled into whisky, which, owing to its fine quality, gave Kentucky a national reputation and brought millions of dollars into the state.”
Of course, there are those who, quoting Cicero, bewail “O tempora, o mores” and complain about modern customs, usually involving the fairer sex. Aghast at the modern girl, rushing from classroom to club meeting, the Enquirer [February 14, 1897] fondly recalled when women knew their place:
“The girls of those days lived more home lives, and did less outside things than the modern young woman. As a class, they were not so well educated, but with the needle, the spinning wheel and the spinet they were expert.”
From "Cincinnati Enquirer", January 12, 1930
Of course, young men did not escape the disdain of their elders. The Cincinnati Daily Press [May 14, 1860] yearned for the days when physical punishment was routine:
“In those good old days when schoolboys were switched off by the ‘master’ at least once a day, the policy seemed to be that a rod of correction was equal to a mile of persuasion.”
And, of course, that noise they call music these days always sucks. The Enquirer [March 27, 1852] hailed the dulcet tones of the Misses Hall, a vocal ensemble of young women:
“The sweet, plaintive music they produce in a quartette appeals to the heart – makes one feel good – it reminds him of the good old days when the beautiful melodies of our native land were appreciated, and screech owl serenading was unknown.”
The theater, likewise, had seen better days. Reviewing a performance by Charles Bass at Cincinnati’s National Theater, the Daily Gazette [July 31, 1851] claimed his performance harked back to the “good old days, when the drama was in its prime in Cincinnati.”
And don’t get the old folks started on the mad social whirl! As far back as 1836, the Cincinnati Mirror complained about the late hours required by the society calendar of the day:
“In the good old days of our grandmothers, when soirees and conversaziones would have sounded like the dialect of Timbuk-too, and had as much meaning as an Egyptian heiroglyphick, parties and balls were given for comfort, chat, and friendly intercourse; a rubber of whist and a contre-danse were the order of the evening, a hearty supper crowned the festivities of the night, and the company were sound asleep by the time when the balls of the present generation are commencing.”
For some, there were no “good old days.” The American Israelite [June 28, 1872] reminded readers complaining contemporary servants weren’t up to snuff that New England families as far back as 1645 grumbled about the quality of their domestic staff even then.
It was a religious newspaper published in Cincinnati, the Universalist [January 29, 1887], that pooh-poohed the whole idea that the “good old days” were any better than modern times, with an impressive inventory of then-contemporary technology:
“We often hear of the ‘good old days of yore.’ Why deprive our children of the enjoyment of those old days? Why not pass a law forbidding the steamboats from ploughing the waters; railroads from running on the land; telegraphs from sending messages; telephones from being used; furnaces, steam heaters, etc., to be taken out of the houses and other buildings; all grates for burning coal to be taken out; all stoves to be melted for old iron; all water-works in cities to be left empty; the use of all gas and illuminators, except dipped tallow candles to be disused – and really go back to the ‘good old times.’”
In general, it appears that the “Good Old Days” were 30 to 40 years before whatever day it happens to be today.
From "Cincinnati Post", February 27, 1923
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