Ever notice how everyone thinks that the time that they grew up in was "the best" time?
If you grew up in the 50s then that was the best of times... if you grew up in the 60s or 70s or 80s then that was the best of times.
I think it's just human nature to look back on our childhoods, no matter what the era, and remember that time as the "best." Everyone looks back fondly on their childhood, because it's a time we can never go back to... yet we want to remember it as the best time of our life. I grew up in the late 60s-early 70s ( born in Nov. 1956) and to me those times were the best, even though in reality they were very unsettling times for all... Vietnam, massive protests, assassination of JFK, RFK, MLK, rioting in the streets (parts of Chicago that burned to the ground in the late 60s are STILL not rebuilt!), Watergate, Kent State, etc. Very much a time of social unrest and turmoil...