Peterson's parents, left alone because they weren't 'lds'

[huckelberry]

Was all that community and childhood stuff something the Mormon church did, then stopped doing, but could now do again? Or did it happen for reasons besides the church itself, then go away when demographic circumstances changed, and the Mormon church is just withering now in a social environment that doesn't support it any more?

A lot happened in the middle of the 20th century. There was a long decade of terrible worldwide depression, then a worldwide war, and then a long economic and demographic boom during a Cold War that terrified .....
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No doubt there were a lot of good things in those days, which would be nice to recover. We're probably not going to be able to recover the good things of mid-twentieth-century Western life by just doing whatever it was people did then, though, because I think the previous recipe for those good things included war and depression as essential ingredients,

Physics guy, You present a reasonable question here. The good old days is common occurring feeling for humans. I may be missing details of what people are are seeing now. My LDS church experience ended with the late 1960s My perception is that what people are speaking of as being lost are things peculiar to the Mormon culture. Mormon culture formed in isolation in the western frontier. In early Utah all social entertainment was created within the church. Dances sports theater and music were all part of that which continued in local wards through most of the 20th century. Living surrounded by nonMormons diluted that self sustaining culture but I am not seeing how it would be preventing its continuation.

In a general sense, for the wider culture of the times, I am unable to see the 50s 60s or 70s as the good old days. I remember difficult times struggling to change. I did not know anybody living "Leave it to Beaver" Perhaps I am only seeing through my own mind but I cannot imagine longing for a return to those decades.