I had a similar realization a couple years ago when I was hanging out with my rural friends.
10 years ago when we were there at night the entire field would be lit up with fireflies. Now you're lucky if you see just a few buzzing around.
Life is becoming more bland as the 'spices' are killed off.
My dad was a mason and from close exposure to it it's basically just a drinking club that does community service type things occasionally. Maybe 250 years ago they were some elite powerful network but nowadays it's grill city.
He certainly wasn't rich either, I think the wealth demographics are dependent on the area