 In the spring there was an attempt on President Reagan's life and in Ireland Bobby Sands died at age 27 in a hunger strike in Long Kesh prison trying to regain Special Category status for Irish Republican prisoners, resulting in a new surge of IRA recruitment and activity. At home, my activist parents were busily involved in local grassroots levy elections. Just after I turned 42, in the summer of 1981, IBM produced its first personal computer (Model 5150) with a whopping 256 kB memory. Little did any of us know how deeply enmeshed we would become with our PC's over the next few decades.I don't remember much else about that summer though there are photos of Josh in his usual sports uniforms and a certificate for Jane completing 77 hours as a volunteer at the hospital where I worked. That fall we made another beach trip just before school started. In December came the first rumblings of the AIDS epidemic. News reported 75 deaths between July and December from a mysterious illness killing homosexual men. It would take years for full understanding of this disease. Next page |