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Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate drops to 8.1 percent in September

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H.S. Football: District 2 sets playoff format for six classifications

If there is one thing the pandemic with its closures, quarantines and lockdowns has impressed us with it&rsquo;s this: we should be thankful for the small but good things in life that we once had and hope to see again.
				Our ancestors, the folks who survived the Great Depression and World War II, appreciated the simple joys they found in the postwar years, having at least temporarily lost them. Let&rsquo;s look at how those folks took pleasure in the world around them. Maybe we can learn a lesson or two.
				Neighborliness: The neighborhoods of those days saw much friendship and cooperation. In my parents&rsquo; time, it was common for relatives and friends to stop by one another&rsquo;s homes in the evening for chit-chat or perhaps a round of cards. Many family friendships were cemented over jigsaw puzzles and board games like Parcheesi.
				Television: TV wasn&rsquo;t much in the immediate postwar era, before we got our local channels. But if a neighbor family invited you over to watch a flickering sitcom or Friday night fights that would sometimes fade right out, so what? You&rsquo;d laugh and just enjoy the visit. Premium channels and big screens be damned: their hearts were in the right place.
				Movies: The big differences from today were the presence of town and neighborhood theaters, often within easy walking distance. That kind of closeness lent itself to family movie nights. I enjoyed war movies, detective movies and comedies, all patiently explained to me by my parents. The 10-cent popcorn wasn&rsquo;t bad either.
				Clubs: The first half of the 20th century was a golden age of social groups. The Eagles, Elks, Moose, Odd Fellows and similar clubs had hefty memberships and often owned sizable buildings for their monthly meetings. Church organizations and veterans&rsquo; posts were at their all-time high. I remember going to a PTA meeting with my parents and finding the grade school auditorium packed.
				Teen hangouts: You didn&rsquo;t need a lot of money or tech to have a great time in your high school years. There were dances in the gym every weekend, dances at Hanson&rsquo;s and Sans Souci every summer and plenty of pinball machines, juke boxes and 20-cent ice cream sodas to fuel your adolescence.
				Shopping: The parking lot the size of Rhode Island was eons into the future. You&rsquo;d hop on the bus to your community&rsquo;s downtown and get ready to run into your friends and neighbors, who&rsquo;d invite you to stop at the lunch counter to catch up on news or maybe recommend the store with the best Santa.
				Comic books: For 10 cents you&rsquo;d enter a world of adventure, sci-fi, romance, teen comedy, crime and punishment or just about anything else you wanted. These worlds were no farther away than the magazine rack at the neighborhood grocery or drugstore. If you desperately needed to do a book report and could raise 15 cents, there was always the Classics Comics version of &ldquo;A Tale of Two Cities.&rdquo;
				Hobbies: Model railroading was at its height, with sometimes massive small-scale layouts in devotees&rsquo; basements. So was building plastic or wooden model planes, cars and ships. For those less inclined to minute construction, there were the massive Lionel train sets, with snap-together buildings &#8211; seen nearly everywhere at Christmas.
				Most of that old world is gone today. But as we try to reconstruct life (as our predecessors did), perhaps we too should make neighborliness and simplicity our watchwords. Hey, no law says you can&rsquo;t invite the neighbors over for Parcheesi.

Remember When: We were thankful for little things