Afterimage: a visual image or other sense impression that persists after the stimulus that caused it is no longer operative.

    It was a different country then.  Children were raised in homes with two parents, a mother and father, a husband and wife. Usually the mother stayed home to raise the children, especially after the war years. The husband was the breadwinner and often stayed with the same company until he retired with a pension.  There was little diversity. There were no drugs. Abortion was an abomination.

    It was the world of Ozzie and Harriet. Everyone knew what was expected of them. The Brady Bunch, some years later, was about a blended family that was still traditional in its makeup.

   But massive change has come to American culture to the point where the traditional values of the fifties seem archaic. I wonder if the conservative movement draws its strength from those who feel nostalgic about the past, from those who want to go back to the way things used to be.

    It is as if they see the old America as a kind of afterimage. Their vision has not cleared. They may try to rub their eyes in an attempt to restore the past. But it exists now only as an imprint on the retinas of what was once the norm. There is no going back.