8-)He's not gone, he's just going through a bout of senior depression. Many of his old friends have shuffled off to the old folk's facebook and he's feeling lonely and alienated because all of the young fishermen just nod and smile when he rambles on about the good old days.
Seems easy to consider the perceived differences between today's teenager and the good old bad days of yesteryear.
We were the pig in the python in that kids were everywhere... I don't know this as a fact, but I'd guess the ratio of kids to adults was at an all-time high during the mid-60s early 70s. We were outside; without the lure of computers, video and the wasteland of TV, we were activity oriented.
Looking back, its amazing that even in 1968 - 70 there were so few sneaker choices, so few fast food chains, so few (other than Levis) clothing brands favored by kids.
There was not a class/clique commonality around what you wore - the cool thing was wearing what you saw as cool... what was uncool was having parents who made you wear khakis and/or button down shirts.
Where I went to high school, there were no (at least as I was aware) cliques that were recognizable as such. Part of that was due to assigned seating in every class which probably pushed us to interact with more kids than maybe we would have otherwise.
We had a huge number of ex-military on staff, and as such (we didn't have many rules - more like a code of good manners), but rules were rules and discipline could be harsh... but consistent. We had no "security" roaming the halls.
What we did have was a full blown musical scene across society... anybody could put a band together, play a few gigs, and end up with a recording contract. MTV helped end that.
You could have a favorite college/pro team and not own one shred of licensed apparel. Fandom was basically limited to weekends and the entertainment venue for most fans was attendance or the radio, and whatever you "knew" about your team came from the newspaper... not a message board or a TV talking head. College-wise, maybe 3 or at the most 4 games were televised per weekend, with a heavy dose of the Big 10 and Notre Dame.
Oh, and we had chicks in mini-skirts, short shorts, and 2 piece swimming suits! The death of the girdle and bra and the availability of "birth" of the pill was game changing for teenagers everywhere!
There was a political awareness among younger people that. for want of a better description, was liberal leaning - long before "liberal" became a pejorative - with most of the age group (in my region anyway) seeing the end result as being a country that lived up to the promise and the hype... you know, that whole beacon of freedom and equality BS. Well, we all have our own idea as how that worked out... on the trip down the Yellow Brick Road of promise the leadership of a brave new world all managed to get shot in the head. Oh well.
Also, I made it through school without a cell phone
Made it through k-12 without facebook, Twitter, etc..
Dial up was cutting edge
Schools still taught grammar and geography
I played street hockey and backyard football
Nintendo and Sega were very cool
Collecting and trading cards was still cool
I unfortunately drank "Surge"
The only "reality TV" was Real World on MTV
MTV still showed music videos
The NFL wasn't boring like today
Going to the movies didn't require taking out a loan
TGIF was good tv
Rax made a killer roast beef sandwich
oh, and my first computer was the size of an aircraft carrier.....
and unlike today, folks caught a lot of big stripers on peanuts!!!!!!