this is the 25th
anniversary of two important events. On January 20th 1981 I was a freshman in high school. I remember watching President Reagan take his oath of office with Nancy, in red, at his side.
America has changed immensely since then–mostly for the better. Because of the poor economy and the Soviet threat, we were under a cloud both at home and abroad. Reagan changed all that. Actually he didn’t change anything. He just reminded us that we were better than we had thought we were. He was right.
The other momentous event that day was the release of the hostages from Tehran. I recall the television reports flipping back and forth between the pageantry in Washington and the relief in Landstuhl.
I’ll never forget that day.
And now I know that I am old. Because I can remember vividly the emotions I felt on a day, now a quarter of a century past.
January 21st, 2006 at 5:45 am
Old, eh? I was out of college in 1981 …
January 21st, 2006 at 4:57 pm
I was in junior high. My semi-hippy parents had us kids convinced we would be in a nuclear war soon. Luckily, they were wrong. I do remember some classmates badmouthing him and my response was that he was elected and we need to give him the benefit of the doubt at the onset.
I’m not crazy about some of Reagan’s policies, but I certainly feel he had an optimism, and a gereral foreign policy, that served us well.
I remember, a little more clearly than the inauguration, the day he was shot. We watched on TV in my 8th grade American history class. It was the same year I got Bill Boner (then a state rep) to come talk to the class. Later, as Boner’s political image went down hill, my family always refered to him, in a ribbing kind of way, as MY guy.
January 22nd, 2006 at 4:05 pm
I remember that day too. I was so sad that Jimmy Carter was defeated by a man who was surely the Anti-Christ (6 letters in each name, 6-6-6) and nuclear war loomed ahead.
Boy, was I wrong.