We needed a break from watching the heartbreaking news coming from Boston yesterday. Marathons are joyful times, when runner are rewarded for months of hard training. An entire city celebrates, and its spirit transcends the entire 26 mile course. I know my Boston friends were very much looking forward to it when I saw them on Saturday.
We tuned into an exception National Geographic series on the 1980s.We made it through the first few hours, which was full of anecdotes about Steve Jobs, President Reagan's assassination, the Rubik's Cube, The Day After movie, Madonna, Run DMC, Calvin Klein underwear, Star Wars, CNN, Valley girls, new Coke and the Pepsi Wars, and more. The site has plenty of more background. You could make the case that the 80s was transformative of a decade we've had, where personal computers and cell phones and VCRs and handheld video cameras and new luxuries became common. Disposable income with a booming economy transformed American culture. Yes, the documentary has had a little too much Jane Fonda. But Larry Hagman, RIP, contributed some witty one-liners as he reflected on Dallas.
That was our formative decade, where I went from turning 4 in March of 1980 to leaving as an 8th grader. I remember most of the decade, from Princess Diana's wedding to the Challenger and the 100th birthday of the Statue of Liberty to President George H.W. Bush's election to the music and the movies and big hair and jelly bracelets to Iranian hostages to Judge Bork's failed confirmation. What a remarkable decade. And now enough time has passed that you can reflect on something 30 years ago and it wasn't just yesterday.
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