.......he told me that he really was in the golden age in the 60's and 70's- after that, it stopped being fun for him...
I'll second that.
Recall a couple of the ex WW II Captains reckoning that they had the best of it - after they stopped being shot at of course - in the early days of the present civil aviation. One then bemoaned the fact that in his youth the long distant Express train railway drivers were the Golden Boys, revered by one and all, but now they turned up in greasy overalls carrying their lunch in a tin box. That's going to happen to us, he said.
Has it ?