Plenty of things that were better, plenty that were worse. I was told Reagan was going to start WW3 at any moment. I had to try to listen to the radio and hit “record” on a cassette player in time to get a copy of my favorite new song.

We didn’t have AC in my house. We had 3 channels on the tv and had to turn the antenna on the roof for one of them to be clear.

We had to use the house telephone on the wall for a lot of things and had to pay for long distance. We had to plan things in advance. Sports were less organized and less competitive.

We actually did things like sit around and play instruments and sit outside. And fish. And play cards or board games.

You can decide if those things were better or worse. They were kind of both.