What does he mean here?

Hi everyone! This is a little piece of a story I'm translating now. The thing is, I'm not sure what he means in this sentence:

"That he'll leave a rental car there and just, you know, come in, you know, lock up… That was… The good old days."

That they can park the plane and lock it up in the hangar not waiting for the guy?

Here's the whole passage:

...Al and Herb decided they were gonna fly across the country. And Al was gonna be the navigator, and he had all the maps and everything like that, but Al would be reading these maps, you know, very close, ‘cause he was so blind. And the first leg of the trip they were going up to – Pocatello, Idaho. So, they took off, and Al navigated Herb up there. They radioed ahead that they were gonna land at night, and they guy said he’s so late he’s going back into town. That he'll leave a rental car there and just, you know, come in, you know, lock up… That was… The good old days. So Herb did a perfect landing, you know, at night. They parked a plane, there was the rental car. They did everything the guy wanted, then saw him driving into town.

XXX