A rousing cheer filled the room when Howie declared,
"I
love reunions ― and I love this class ―
and I suspect many of you are here tonight because you share these
feelings."
And he closed by inviting us all,
once again, to let the good time roll, and to
"welcome one another
―
with hugs ― to our 1990 class reunion ... [to]
dance, sing along to the oldies, party and enjoy." (Click
here to hear
Howie's welcoming address
in its entirety.)
The 1980s gave us economic stress characterized by rising
unemployment, severe government program cutbacks, and recession which, for the first time in history,
was accompanied by unprecedented concurrent inflation, driven by record high interest
rates and a rise in corporate
bankruptcies ¾
and
it was all addressed ineffectually by "trickle-down
Reagan-omics"
and deficit spending beyond belief. On Wall St., we had the
greatest bull market in history, followed by the biggest crash since 1929, junk
bonds and a tremendous insider trading scandal involving Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky.
We had a hostage crisis in Iran, a national air traffic
controller's strike, a herpes scare that was quickly replaced with the beginning of a worldwide and deadly AIDS epidemic, the Challenger
space tragedy, a massacre of Chinese at Tiananmen Square, and the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989. We were almost forced to watch Monty Python and "Love
American Style," and listen to grotesque punk rock music and Michael
Jackson. But on the upside, albeit short-lived, there was a return to rockabilly music, 1950s style, led early in the decade by a Long Island group called
the Stray Cats.
By 1990, many of us had computers in our
homes, and we were definitely in the mood to
party again.
And, as Howie invited us to that Saturday night in
July, we sure did.
Click
on the Brownie to view the 30-year reunion photo album.