Remembrances of President Ronald Reagan's America pt 1

During this week of what would have been President Reagan's 100th birthday many stories will be written and I am sure that there will be plenty discussions about him on the cable news channels.

Earlier today I read a good article on CNN.com by Ed Rollins entitled, "Ronald Reagan restored faith in America''  The article was pretty much what I would expect for someone who worked  for President Reagan.

The majority of comments about the article I  saw were negative. Although, I did not totally disagree with some of negative comment about  President  Reagan. I will write about that later.

There was part of one comment that got my attention: Seenan wrote "...Reagan is sort of a mythical person at this point some people remember him the way they want to remember and not the way he was". That is an interesting thought although I wander  if anybody really remembers how things really were after 30 years?

I don't know about anyone else but I wonder how accurately I remember what actually happened in the early 80's. Seems to me I have more impressions of what happened back then. And this led me to mentally go back.

I was a freshmen at Centerville {Oh) High School in 1980. My freshman year I was the only disabled person in a school of about 2,000 students. I would like to take a moment to thank any classmates who were there at the time. Over the years, I have heard terrible stories of how other disabled  or "different'' people have been poorly treated and bullied  in high school. In my experience I always felt like I fit in and I never was made to feel "less than". And I am very grateful for that.

At the time that President Reagan took office the Iran Hostage crisis was still going on. That was the first "worldly issue" I remember really being aware of. Up until that time anything outside of the Dayton area that didn't involve MLB or the NFL or music was not worthy of my attention.

This is about the time I remember beginning to understand the Cold War with Russia. I remember talk of President Reagan having his finger on the "red button" and the underlying possibility of nuclear war. But as a kid really just starting to grasp a world concept, the possibility of nuclear war was the only negative about the President.

For the most part I remember a feeling of prosperity and of unity as a country. And I seem to recall debates between Republicans and Democrats but it was nothing like the guttural, juvenile name calling that goes on on cable TV and online today.  But maybe if we had as many cable news channels and the internet back then it would be similar;  but I would like to think not.

To be continued....