Born Before 1986

Yes, that's me. A list of things you don't know if you were born after 1986.

One thing that I do think about quite a bit, is how scared we were when we were sure that Russia and the USA were going to blow each other up with nuclear bombs. Remember War Games, Red Dawn and The Morning After? I wasn't allowed to watch The Morning After when it was on TV, because my mom was sure it would give me nightmares.

But she shouldn't have worried about that specifically, I was having mushroom-cloud nightmares anyway. When I told my grandfather, he was no help. "Honey," he said, "if there are nuclear wars, we don't have to worry about it, because we'll be vaporized immediately. Don't you think they'll bomb Boeing first?" That cheered my little baby-teen self up quite a bit. I went home and packed a backpack, ready to go, so if the alerts were sounded (I was sure there'd have to be alerts, that's the way it happened in the movies, after all!) I'd be ready to grab my backpack and head for the hills! Two steps ahead of nuclear holocaust, that's where I'd be!

I was born 11 years before my little sister, and she doesn't know what it's like to live worried about the communists blowing us all into vapor. For her, the big worries are whether she's being overly commercialistic in her purchases and as a result is supporting child labor in Indonesia.

Which I worry about too. Maybe I just worry too much.