those were the days

phrase

—used to say that a period of time in the past was pleasant and often better than the present time

When I was a kid, we spent our summers at the beach. Those were the days!

Examples of those were the days in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

And those were the days of writing seven or eight stories a day. — Lauren Goode, Wired News, 19 Dec. 2025

In retrospect, those were the days. — Geoff Colvin, Fortune, 10 Oct. 2025

And those were the days of going in and cutting live tracks all together in the room. — Ed Masley, AZCentral.com, 25 Mar. 2025

But those were the days when the conference often felt like Ohio State and everyone else. — Stewart Mandel, The Athletic, 1 Jan. 2025

Playing outside with neighborhood friends in a pre-cell phone and pre-social media decade, back when the library was a place to check out books, not practice activism, those were the days. — Caleb Harris, Austin American-Statesman, 22 Nov. 2024

And within those, there were adventures and those were the days before mobile phones. — Cnt Editors, Condé Nast Traveler, 27 July 2023

Rhymes for those were the days

• aminopeptidase
• anticholinesterase
• carboxypeptidase
• cyclooxygenase
• hyaluronidase
• monooxygenase
• phosphofructokinase
• ablaze
• airways
• allays
• always
• amaze