I've said ever since the Spring, in the 1st wave of the COVID-19 epidemic and the latest wave of protests against police brutality, that a win by Joe Biden in the Presidential election would redeem 2020.
But even though Biden got 51.3 percent of the popular vote, Donald Trump got 46.8 percent. That means that nearly 47 percent of the voters -- about 74.2 million of them, as opposed to Biden's 81.3 million -- saw all the harm that Trump caused, and either didn't believe it happened, or didn't believe he's responsible for it, or were fine with it.
So 2020 remains a bad year.
That will also, always, be the case for 1980. And a Presidential election that set the nation on a bad course was just one reason.
*
Let's back up a bit: In 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected President. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, he told Americans, "I will never lie to you." It seemed to be what the people wanted at the time.
Carter's Presidency had its accomplishments, but was fraught with trouble. While none of it was of his own making, he did not play the hand he was dealt very well. Inflation and interest rates were up. On July 15, 1979, he delivered a speech from the Oval Office of the White House, saying there was a "crisis of confidence" in America. He never used the word "malaise," but it became known as "The Malaise Speech."
Things got worse.
November 4, 1979: The Iran Hostage Crisis begins. Islamic militants take over the U.S. Embassy in Iran, and take 80 hostages, a number that will drop to 52. At first, the nation rallies around President Jimmy Carter, as the nation tends to rally around the President when a crisis occurs. On December 27, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. On January 4, 1980, Carter announced a grain embargo against the Soviets.
But the longer the Hostage Crisis went on, the greater the anger at Carter for not successfully resolving it grew. And America's farmers , while not liking the Soviets, liked their money, and were angry at Carter for losing it.
Frank Reynolds anchoring ABC World News Tonight, November 23, 1979
More liberal Democrats began to turn to Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who challenged Carter for the nomination. In the early Primaries, Carter held him off, and Ted's chances to win disappeared. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan, once an actor and the former Governor of California, the darling of the conservative movement, who nearly won the Republican nomination in 1976, pulled away from the pack and won the nomination.
December 31, 1979: New Year's Eve at my family's house in East Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey. I had just turned 10. Earlier in the year, we had adopted a baby girl. My mother made a small sash with "1980" written in crayon, and put it on my sister, and took pictures of her as "Baby New Year."
Mom's parents were spending the night. She suggested making a larger sash with "1979" written on it, and putting it on Grandpa, as "Father Time." Not only did he refuse, but Grandma beat him to it. She was more protective of his dignity than he was of his own.
*
January 1980. On the 7th, Carter authorized a $1.5 billion federal bailout for the bankrupt automaker Chrysler. On the 10th, the last episode of The Rockford Files aired. On the 14th, PBS debuted their kids' science series 3-2-1 Contact. On the 19th, The Pretenders released their self-titled debut album.
On the 20th, the Pittsburgh Steelers won Super Bowl XIV over the Los Angeles Rams. On the 21st, gold hit an all-time high of $843 per ounce. On the 22nd, Andrei Sakharov, the scientist who had given the Soviets their atomic bomb 30 years earlier, was arrested for protesting the arms race and his country's human rights record.
On the 25th, Black Entertainment Television (BET) debuted -- not as a separate network, but as a show on the cable network USA. (It would become its own network in 1983.) On the 27th, ABC gave Battlestar Galactica a 2nd season, renaming it Galactica 1980, and further cutting its budget, to render it completely ridiculous. On the 29th, the Rubik's Cube was introduced.
Former Beatle Paul McCartney took his band Wings to Japan to tour. At the Tokyo airport, Customs officials found marijuana in his luggage. They held him for 10 days before deciding to deport him without charging him. Saturday Night Live parodied the coverage of the Iran Hostage Crisis on ABC News' Nightline as "Day 11: Beatle Held Hostage." As it turned out, though, this would not be the worst thing to happen to any of the former Beatles that year.
Show business legend Jimmy Durante died on the 29th. Baseball legend Albert Pujols and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda were born on the 16th, actress Zooey Deschanel on the 17th, soccer star Xavi on the 25th, Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter on the 28th, and actor Wilmer Valderrama on the 30th.
February 1980. The highlight of the month was the Gold Medal won by the U.S. hockey team, on home ice in Lake Placid, New York. They upset the heavily-favored Soviet team in the Semifinal on the 22nd, and won the Final against Finland on the 24th. It became known as the Miracle On Ice, and it was a huge lift for a country that really needed it.
It led to a rare SI cover with no headline.
The magazine would go on to name an entire team
its "Sportsmen of the Year" for the 1st time.
There's probably a bunch of people in this country who believe it happened while Reagan was already President. After all, such a moment of American victory and patriotism had to have happened under Reagan. It couldn't possibly have happened while Carter was still in office.
Not only did it happen while Carter was still in office, but, since Coach Herb Brooks and several of his players were from Minnesota, Vice President Walter Mondale, a Minnesota native, was in attendance.
But February 1980 was also the month that the FBI took down several members of Congress in the ABSCAM sting, including my Congressman, Frank Thompson (4th District of New Jersey -- East Brunswick is now in the 12th); and 1 of my 2 Senators, Harrison Williams.
On the 1st, the last episode of the soap opera Love of Life aired, after 29 years. The Cure released their album Boys Don't Cry on the 5th. On the same day, PBS debuted its anthology film series Mystery! The 8th featured the premieres of horror film The Fog; American Gigolo, making a star of Richard Gere; and Hero at Large, starring Three's Company star John Ritter as an actor standing in for the star of a superhero film, who accidentally becomes an actual (but non-powered) hero, and loses himself in the role.
On the 12th, Bryan Adams released his self-titled debut album, and actress Christina Ricci was born. David Janssen, star of the 1960s TV thriller The Fugitive, died of a heart attack on the 13th. He was 48. Mel Gibson made his debut as Mad Max on the 15th.
AC/DC lead singer Bon Scott drank himself to death on the 19th. he was 33. Bob Seger released Against the Wind on the 25th. Chelsea Clinton was born on the 27th, but her father, Bill Clinton, would lose his bid for re-election as Governor of Arkansas in November. However, he would be back.
March 1980. NBC, still not recovered from a disastrous 1979 that included the Love Boat ripoff Supertrain, the Animal House ripoff Brothers & Sisters, and the Diff'rent Strokes spinoff Hello, Larry!, debuted Pink Lady and Jeff. The Japanese duo Pink Lady (Mitsuyo "Mie" Nemoto and Keiko "Kei" Masuda) never adjusted to English, and the show was a joke. ABC debuted That's Incredible! on the 3rd, and it worked a little better.
Pierre Trudeau returned to power as Prime Minister in Canada's election on the 3rd. On the 7th, The Psychedelic Furs released their self-titled debut album, and Coal Miner's Daughter premiered, winning Sissy Spacek on Oscar for the life story of country singer Loretta Lynn.
On the 10th, Dr. Herman Tarnower, author of the best-seller The Scarsdale Diet, was shot and killed by his mistress, Jean Harris. Billy Joel released Glass Houses on the 12th. On the 14th, 87 people, including the entire U.S. boxing team, were killed in a plane crash in Warsaw, Poland. On the 21st, Angelo Bruno, boss of the Philadelphia Mob, was whacked.
Also on the 21st, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter announced that America would boycott the upcoming Olympics in Moscow. This single act did more to expose the Soviet Union as "an evil empire," to use Reagan's words, than anything Reagan ever did. It was the right thing to do. But, at the time, most Americans were furious. How dare the President mess with American sports? His popularity receded further.
Also on the 21st, the 3rd season of the CBS drama Dallas ended with the episode "A House Divided." It ended with the show's villain, John Ross Ewing Jr., played by Larry Hagman, shot in his office at the Ewing Oil Building in downtown Dallas. All Spring, Summer and Fall, people around America had 3 questions:
1. Who will be elected President?
2. When will the hostages be released?
3. Who shot J.R.?
On the 24th, Archbishop Óscar Romero was assassinated by a right-wing death squad while celebrating Mass during the El Salvadoran Civil War. On the same day, the University of Louisville basketball team won its 1st NCAA Championship, defeating UCLA 59-54 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. UCLA was coached by Larry Brown. Louisville was coached by Denny Crum, who had been an assistant to John Wooden at UCLA, helping him win 7 National Championships before taking the Louisville job in 1971.
On the 26th, Van Halen released Women and Children First. And on the 27th, the bottom dropped out of the silver market.
English soccer icon Dixie Dean died on the 1st, singer Dick Haymes on the 28th, music conductor Mantovani on the 29th, and track legend Jesse Owens on the 31st. Actress Rebel Wilson was born on the 2nd, actress Laura Prepon on the 7th, actor Matthew Gray Gubler on the 9th, rapper Chingy on the 10th, football player Todd Heap on the 16th, figure skater Alexei Yagudin on the 18th, soccer superstar Ronaldinho on the 21st, basketball coach Luke Walton on the 28th, and former Yankee pitcher Chien-Ming Wang on the 31st.
*
April 1980. This is when things began to go really wrong. On the 1st, New York City's Transport Workers Union went on strike. Without public transportation, the City was paralyzed.
Unlike in 1966, when Mayor John Lindsay had to cave in to their demands, Mayor Ed Koch led thousands of New Yorkers in walking to work across the Brooklyn Bridge. The message to the union was clear: "You need us a lot more than we need you." The strike lasted as long as the one in '66, 11 days, but it had the opposite result: The City government won.
This time, Koch didn't have to ask his catchphrase,
"How'm I doin'?" The crowd was his answer.
On the 5th, CBS aired the last episode of the original version of Hawaii Five-O, with Jack Lord's Steve McGarrett finally arresting Khigh Dheigh's crime lord Wo Fat after 12 years. On the 11th, ABC launched its lame attempt at a Saturday Night Live, Fridays.
There was a coup in Liberia on the 12th, and the apartheid government of Rhodesia was overthrown on the 18th. The new black government left the British Commonwealth, and changed the country's name to Zimbabwe. On the 21st, the Mariel Boatlift began, with 125,000 Cubans reaching Florida by October 31. And Rosie Ruiz cheated her way to victory in the women's division of the Boston Marathon.
On the 14th, the British band Judas Priest released British Steel, including the iconic single "Breaking the Law," beginning the golden age of heavy metal. On the 25th, the band credited with inventing heavy metal, Black Sabbath, released Heaven and Hell, their 1st album with new lead singer Ronnie Dio.
At the same time, their former lead singer, Ozzy Osbourne, was recording his debut solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, featuring "Crazy Train." It was released on September 20. Punk band X released their debut Los Angeles on April 26. On the 30th, NBC finally, mercifully, aired the last episode of one of its most-mocked shows ever, the sitcom Hello, Larry.
Author Jean-Paul Sartre died on April 15th, director Alfred Hitchcock on the 29th, and Luis Muñoz Marín, the father of modern Puerto Rico, on the 30th. Actor Charlie Hunnam was born on the 10th, baseball star Mark Teixeira on the 11th, football player and broadcaster Tony Romo and hockey player Vincent Lecavalier on the 21st, and actors Jordana Brewster and Channing Tatum on the 26th.
On the 24th, Carter gave the order to proceed with Operation Eagle Claw, a.k.a. "Desert One," a commando mission to rescue the hostages in Tehran. But it required 8 helicopters to work, and 2 of them didn't. Carter was told this, and called the mission off. Upon leaving the planned takeoff site, 2 of the copters collided, and 8 men were killed.
On the morning of the 25th, Carter had to tell the country what had happened. Now, with the Democratic nomination for a 2nd term sewed up, many people (including some Republicans crossing over) started voting for Ted Kennedy as a protest vote, knowing he could no longer win the nomination, but the Primaries he might win could, and did, damage Carter.
His chances for re-election were doomed. The only way to save himself now was to get the hostages out diplomatically before November 4 -- and just the attempt of Desert One, which angered the Iranians, made that a lot harder.
His Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, had warned him against the rescue effort. He decided that Carter considered his counsel to no longer be of use, and he resigned.
Carter offered the post to Ed Muskie, Senator from Maine, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1968, and a candidate for President in 1972. Muskie accepted. This put him 5th in the line of succession, and this remains the closest that any person of Polish, or any other Eastern European, descent has gotten to the Presidency.
*
May 1980. On the 1st, Chicago magazine published an article by journalist Dan Rottenberg, titled "About that Urban Renaissance... " It contained the 1st known use of the word "yuppie," short for "Young Urban Professional." Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito died on the 4th, making the eventual breakup of his nation inevitable. On the 8th, the World Health Organization announced that smallpox has been eradicated. The 1st Friday the 13th film premiered on the 9th.
Arsenal Football Club of North London lost 2 cup finals in a week. Having won the FA Cup the year before, they lost it on the 10th, to East London team West Ham United, 1-0 on a goal by Trevor Brooking. On the 14th, they lost the European Cup Winners' Cup Final to Spanish team Valencia, on penalties after a scoreless game, at Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium.
Five years later, Heysel would be the site of one of the worst tragedies in sports history, at the European Cup Final. On the 28th, that Final was held at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, home of Real Madrid in Spain, and Nottingham Forest, of England's East Midlands, made it back-to-back European Cups, defeating Hamburger SV of Germany 1-0.
The major European soccer champions of calendar year 1980 were Liverpool in England, Aberdeen in Scotland, FC Nantes in France, Club Brugge in Belgium, Ajax Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Real Madrid in Spain, Sporting Clube de Portugal, Internazionale Milano in Italy, Olympiacos Athens in Greece, Bayern Munich in West Germany, Dynamo Berlin in East Germany, Red Star Belgrade in Yugoslavia, and Spartak Moscow in the Soviet Union. In America, it would be the New York Cosmos.
On the 16th, the movie Fame premiered; and rookie Earvin "Magic" Johnson, filling in at center for an injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, scored 42 points in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, leading the Los Angeles Lakers to clinch the title over the Philadelphia 76ers. On the 18th, the Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington State erupted, killing 57 people; and Ian Curtis, lead singer of British band Joy Division, hanged himself to death.
The 1st of 5 titles in 9 years
On the 21st, Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back premiered, providing a revelation that shocked us as much as it did the films' hero, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill): The man who appeared to be the films' main villain, Darth Vader (David Prowse wearing the armor, James Earl Jones providing the voice) was, in fact, Luke's father, legendary Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. No film twist before it had ever packed the same level of punch, and none has since.
On the 22nd, the video game Pac-Man debuted. On the 23rd, a film version of Stephen King's The Shining did, directed by Stanley Kubrick, and starring Jack Nicholson at his craziest. King hated it, and has said that Kubrick -- who terrorized actress Shelley Duvall while filming, and even forced 127 takes of a scene -- completely missed the point of the story.
On the 24th, an overtime goal from Bobby Nystrom gave the New York Islanders the win over the Philadelphia Flyers, in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, for the team's 1st Stanley Cup. It had now been 40 years since their rivals, the New York Rangers, had won one. On the 30th, English soccer star Steven Gerrard was born.
June 1980. Cable News Network (CNN) debuted on the 1st. Urban Cowboy premiered on the 6th, Bronco Billy on the 11th, and, on the 20th, The Blues Brothers, Brubaker, and Can't Stop the Music, starring 1976 Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner (as Caitlyn was still known) and The Village People. The Blues Brothers has been called one of the best movies ever about music, Brubaker one of the best movies ever about prison, and Can't Stop the Music one of the worst movies ever, period.
On the 9th, Richard Pryor, perhaps the funniest man in the world, did something that wasn't funny at all. Oh, sure, there would be jokes about it, including his own. But it wasn't funny. At his home in Los Angeles, he got high on cocaine, and set himself on fire. Somehow, he survived to tell the tale, and finally beat his addiction.
Also on the 20th, The Rolling Stones released Emotional Rescue. West Germany's soccer team won Euro 1980 in Italy on the 22nd. On the 23rd, Bob Dylan released his 2nd album of Christian songs, Saved; and a heat wave began in America, which would kill 1,700 people through early September.
On the 25th, Huey Lewis and the News released their self-titled debut album. On the 30th, the band Queen released their album The Game, and the singles "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Another One Bites the Dust" went on to become their only Number 1 hits on the American music charts.
Baseball Hall-of-Famer Richard "Rube" Marquard died on the 1st, writer Henry Miller on the 7th, and orchestra leader Bert Kaempfert on the 21st. Tennis star Venus Williams was born on the 17th, Heisman Trophy winner Jason White on the 19th, basketball star Richard Jefferson on the 21st, actress Minka Kelly on the 24th, and football star Michael Vick on the 26th.
*
July 1980. Say this for the Republican Party: They've got some nerve. They held their Convention in Detroit, a city built by unions, which they hate. They held it at the Joe Louis Arena, named for a sports hero, and a black one at that.
The religious conservatives had taken over, and they made opposition to abortion a keystone of their Party platform. They also dropped support for the Equal Rights Amendment from it. They nominated Reagan for President, and the man who finished 2nd in Delegates, former Congressman from Texas and Ambassador George H.W. Bush, for Vice President.
The Vice Presidential nomination was not decided until Wednesday night of the Convention, after Reagan's nomination was made official. This remains the last major-party Convention where the entire ticket was not known by at least the weekend before.
The Olympics were held in Moscow, without the U.S., Canada and West Germany. The host Soviet Union and their Communist satellite East Germany dominated. But there were other moments: British runners Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe won Gold Medals, each in the other's specialty race: Ovett in the 800 meters, Coe in the 1,500 meters.
And Polish pole vaulter Władysław Kozakiewicz celebrated his world record and Gold Medal in the high jump by giving the Soviet crowd, already booing him, "the arm of honor." In Poland, it has been known as "Kozakiewicz's gesture" ever since.
Looks like I picked the wrong month to quit watching movies: Airplane! was released on July 2nd, a remake of The Blue Lagoon on the 5th, Used Cars on the 11th, Honeysuckle Rose on the 18th, and Caddyshack and Dressed to Kill on the 25th.
On the 25th, with Brian Johnson as their new lead singer, AC/DC released their album Back in Black, containing the iconic songs "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Hell's Bells." Actor Peter Sellers died on the 24th, and the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose admittance to the U.S. for cancer treatment the preceding October 22 had triggered the Hostage Crisis, died in exile in Egypt on the 27th.
Left to right: Mark Evans, Phil Rudd,
Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Brian Johnson
Actress Olivia Munn was born on the 3rd, basketball star Pau Gasol and actress Eva Green on the 6th, figure skater Michelle Kwan on the 7th, Irish soccer star Robbie Keane on the 8th, actor Thomas Ian Nicholas on the 10th, hockey goalie Ryan Miller on the 17th, actress Kristen Bell on the 18th, supermodel and Tom Brady wife Gisele Bündchen on the 20th, Yankee Legend CC Sabathia on the 21st, Dutch soccer star Dirk Kuyt on the 22nd, and Jacinda Ardern, now the popular Prime Minister of New Zealand, on the 26th.
August 1980. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was elected the President of Iceland on the 1st, making her the world's 1st democratically directly-elected female President. Also on that day, Hurricane Allen pounded the Caribbean and the Gulf Coast; and a fictional storm caused the events of a film premiering on the date, The Final Countdown. It featured the current aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, unintentionally going back in time to the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In real life, after the bombing, the ship's namesake, Admiral Chester Nimitz, was placed in command of the Pacific Fleet.
On the 5th, Pat Benatar released Crimes of Passion. On the 7th, electrician Lech Wałęsa led a strike at what was then named the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. This, a real "workers' revolution," was the beginning of the end for the Warsaw Pact, the Soviets' equivalent alliance to America's NATO. On the 8th, Xanadu premiered.
Dorothy Stratten, Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Year, was murdered by her estranged husband on the 14th. He then killed himself. On the 15th, The Kidnapping of the President premiered, with Hal Holbrook playing a President kidnapped by terrorists on a state visit to Toronto, and he has to be rescued by William Shatner.
There would be no rescue -- literal, political, or emotional -- for Jimmy Carter. As it did in 1976, the Democratic Party held its convention at Madison Square Garden in New York, and nominated Carter for President and Walter Mondale for Vice President.
This time, though, Ted Kennedy's speech on Tuesday night was warmly received; while Carter's own speech on Thursday night was not. When he mentioned that he had begun the process of re-starting the military draft (which was never completed), he became the only President, to this day, ever booed in his renomination acceptance speech.
"For me, an hour ago, this campaign came to an end.
For all those whose cause has been our concern,
the work goes on, the cause endures,
the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die!"
At the end, Carter tried to bring Kennedy onstage for the traditional gesture of the defeated candidates raising arms with the victorious one. Ted wouldn't go for it. It looked like the President of the United States was chasing the heir to the Kennedy legacy around the stage.
Just as Republicans thought 4 years earlier, when Reagan gave a nice speech after Gerald Ford was nominated for a full term, Democrats were now thinking, "Maybe we nominated the wrong guy." Except Ted's personal life was a mess at this point, and the Republicans would have done whatever they could to end the Kennedy legacy right there. It should be noted that no member of the Kennedy family has run for President since.
The Cars released their album Panorama on the 15th. Singer Vanessa Carlton was born on the 16th, and actors Macaulay Culkin and Chris Pine on the 26th. The B-52's released Wild Planet on the 27th.
*
September 1980. On the 1st, Terry Fox, who had begun a "Marathon of Hope," an attempted walk for cancer research, westward across his native Canada -- from St. John's on the island of Newfoundland on April 12, intending to finish at Vancouver, hear his home in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia -- was forced to abandon it at Thunder Bay, Ontario, as the cancer that had already claimed one of his legs returned.
He had gone 3,339 miles, about halfway through his intended journey, and raised $1.7 million for cancer research. (At the time, the U.S. and Canadian dollars were about equal. In 2020 money, that figure would be about US $5.4 million.) He died the following June 28, only 22 years old.
On the 2nd, The Dead Kennedys released their debut album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. On the 4th, the last episode of Barnaby Jones aired after 8 seasons. The 8th saw the premiere of the film Battle Beyond the Stars, which was a space-based remake of the 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven, which itself was a remake of the 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai. The TV music show Solid Gold debuted on the 13th. Melvin and Howard premiered on the 19th. Iraq invaded Iran on the 22nd, starting an 8-year war that neither side could win, and had to be settled by outside diplomats.
On September 25, John Bonham, drummer for Led Zeppelin, followed Bon Scott's path to destruction, and drank himself to death. He was 32. On the 40th Anniversary of Bonham's death, Dan Epstein, author of the 1970s baseball memoir Big Hair & Plastic Grass, and then a teenager living in Chicago who had been looking forward to Zep's upcoming concert at Chicago Stadium, home of the NBA's Bulls and the NHL's Blackhawks, posted this on Facebook:
It was a different world then, obviously. Chicago Stadium is long gone, the glorious Trib Tower is now being turned into yet another pile of "luxury condos" for the under-taxed rich, and we were lining up virtually for concert tickets well before the onset of our current (200,000 dead and counting) pandemic.
It still feels like yesterday to me, though. I had just started high school, nine months after moving to Chicago from LA, and was so excited to be starting a new chapter of my life in a new city in a new decade. But things turned grim pretty quickly.
Led Zeppelin tickets were not an option for me (couldn't afford 'em), but Bonham's untimely death felt like a kick-drum to the gut just the same. And when Ronald Reagan's election and John Lennon's assassination followed in just a matter of weeks, my youthful optimism quickly curdled into toxic cynicism, something which took me years (and maybe even decades) to fully shake.
While I still wake up every morning happy to be alive and thankful for all the good things in my life, I must admit that I now feel that same cold sense of cynicism creeping back into my bloodstream. Reagan's election in 1980 was the first time I truly understood how many Americans were happy to throw their fellow citizens under the bus in the name of an imagined sense of national "greatness," and how many others were willing to go along with it all in the name of "civility."
"We've gotta give the guy a chance," my then-stepfather admonished me after I hung an anti-Reagan sign in my bedroom window on the day of his inauguration. "No we do NOT," I retorted. (If I could go back in time and meet my 14 year-old self, I would give him a hearty handshake. And maybe sneak him a beer.)
The rapid rot our country has experienced these last four years has its roots in crimes going back centuries - I'd chalk it up to karma if Henry Kissinger's continued existence didn't make me seriously doubt that karma was actually a "thing" - and certainly there were plenty of problems already in place (like industrial decline and the Iran crisis) by 1980 that teed up Reagan's presidency for him. And of course John Bonham had nothing to do with any of that, but the anniversary of his death really brings back that sense of anxiety I felt in the fall and early winter of 1980, which tastes awfully similar to the one I feel right now.
I was 10 years old. At the time, I had no love for hard rock, including heavy metal -- not that Zep, or AC/DC for that matter, considered their music to be heavy metal.
September 26 saw the premieres of My Bodyguard and Woody Allen's Stardust Memories. Carl Sagan's PBS series Cosmos premiered on the 28th. All on the 29th, Stevie Wonder released Hotter Than July, Kool & the Gang released Celebrate!, and Kurtis Blow released his self-titled debut album.
Softball star Jennie Finch was born on September 3, baseball pitcher Mark Prior on the 7th, actress Michelle Williams on the 9th, basketball icon Yao Ming on the 12th, actor Ben Savage and baseball pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka on the 13th, rapper T.I. on the 25th, hockey-playing twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin on the 26th, Shazam! star Zachary Levi on the 29th, and tennis star Martina Hingis on the 30th.
*
October 1980. For the 4th time in the last 5 years -- in each case, all but 1979 -- the Divisional Champions in baseball were the New York Yankees in the American League Eastern, the Kansas City Royals in the AL Western, and the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League East.
The Yanks had to hold off a charge by the Baltimore Orioles, winning 103 games to the O's' 100. The Royals held off the resurgent Oakland Athletics, now managed by former Yankee manager Billy Martin with a style known as "Billy Ball." The Phils had to win 2 of the last 3 away to the Montreal Expos to win that title, and did. And the Houston Astros won their 1st title in the NL West, having to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 1-game Playoff at Dodger Stadium to do it. And nobody accused this edition of Astros of cheating. The Dodgers had won the NL West in 1974, '77 and '78.
The Yankees had beaten the Royals in the AL Championship Series in dramatic fashion in 1976, '77 and '78. This time, the Royals were better, or perhaps just better-prepared. Or maybe the loss of Thurman Munson in August 1979 loomed larger in October 1980 than we expected it to, based on the Yankees' performance from April through September 1980. They Royals beat the Yankees in 3 straight, a home run by .390-hitting AL Most Valuable Player George Brett in Game 3 serving as the exclamation point.
The Phils had been overwhelmed by the Cincinnati Reds in the NLCS in 1976, got screwed by the umpires in losing to the Dodgers in '77, and embarrassed themselves in losing to the Dodgers in '78. This time, in one of the most dramatic postseason baseball series ever, they took the Astros to the clinching Game 5 at the Astrodome, and won their 1st Pennant in 30 years.
It took them 6 games to beat the Royals, clinching their 1st World Championship in 98 seasons of play, at home at Veterans Stadium, on the 21st. It was sweet vindication for manager Dallas Green, future Hall-of-Famers Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton, former Reds star Pete Rose, and Phils veterans like Larry Bowa, Greg Luzinski, Garry Maddox, Bob Boone, and Tug McGraw, the reliever who got the final out, after having been part of the New York Mets' Pennant winners of 1969 and 1973.
On the 3rd, The Police released Zenyatta Mondatta, which included "Don't Stand So Close to Me." On the 8th, Talking Heads released Remain In Light, which included "Once in a Lifetime." On the same day, Prince released "Dirty Mind," which included a song about oral sex, "Head"; a song about incest, "Sister" ("I was 16, but I guess that's no excuse. My sister was 32, lovely and loose."); and a song about a ménage à trois gone bad, "When You Were Mine." The films The Elephant Man and Private Benjamin were released on the 10th.
On the 17th, Bruce Springsteen released his double album The River. It included the title track, "The Ties That Bind," "Sherry Darling," "Independence Day," "Cadillac Ranch," "Ramrod," "Wreck on the Highway," and the song that became his biggest hit single yet, the Number 5 "Hungry Heart." On the 20th, U2 released their debut album, Boy.
Billie Thomas, who as a child had played Buckwheat in the Our Gang (later known as the Little Rascals) shorts, died on the 10th. Future Congressman Joe Kennedy III, grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was born on the 4th. So was Czech soccer star Tomáš Rosický. English soccer star Ledley King was born on the 12th, English soccer star Scott Parker and American singer Ashanti on the 13th, English actor Ben Whishaw on the 14th, basketball star Sue Bird on the 16th, baseball star José Bautista on the 19th, Kim Kardashian on the 21st, and singer Monica and actress Casey Wilson on the 24th.
It took a lot of negotiating to establish a date for even one Presidential debate. This was made all the harder because Carter was working like mad to get the hostages out of Iran, which hurt him because he couldn't campaign like a traditional President running for re-election.
In hindsight, Carter might have been better off if, like President Lyndon B. Johnson with the Vietnam War in 1968, he had announced that he was not running for another term, focused on diplomacy (and the rest of the running of the country, of course), and let his Vice President try for the Democratic nomination. (A parallel: Mondale and LBJ's Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, were both from Minnesota, and Mondale was something of a protegé to Humphrey.)
Finally, on October 28, just 7 days before the election, the one and only debate between the 2 major-party nominees was held, at the Public Auditorium in Cleveland. The polls were tightening a bit, as some people were concerned over Reagan's age (69 -- Carter was 56) and his bellicosity toward the Soviets.
Among his arguments in an attempt to get people back on his side, Carter accused Reagan and the Republicans of wanting to cut spending on Medicare. Reagan laughed, and said to Carter, "There you go again," and explained what his actual stance on Medicare was. (As it turned out, Carter was telling the truth, and Reagan was lying: He went on to cut spending on Medicare.)
Carter tried to use his closing statement to make himself look like a statesman, a serious man, as opposed to his opponent, the former actor who had been a bad Governor of the nation's largest State. It didn't work. Reagan's closing statement became a classic: It included the key question, one by which the incumbent party's nominee has been judged every 4 years for the last 40 years: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
It sealed the deal, and rendered many people's concerns over Reagan less meaningful than the ones they had over Carter. The message was clear: "Ron, some of us don't like you, but we're voting for you, anyway, because you're not Jimmy Carter."
*
November 4, 1980: Reagan begins an era of Republican dominance, winning 489 Electoral Votes to be elected President. Carter wins only 6 States: His home State of Georgia, Vice President Mondale's home State of Minnesota, Rhode Island, Maryland, West Virginia and Hawaii; plus the District of Columbia, for 49 Electoral Votes. He didn't even win such traditionally Democratic States as New York and Massachusetts.
Carter's Electoral Vote drop of 228 was the 2nd-highest ever for an incumbent President. Only Herbert Hoover did worse, going from 444 in 1928 to 59 in 1932, a drop of 385. The Republicans had suggested that Carter's economy was the worst since the Great Depression that began on Hoover's watch. It wasn't: The recession of 1973-76, which began on Richard Nixon's watch and helped to elect Carter, was worse. But things would get worse once Reagan's tax cut kicked in.
The popular vote was considerably closer, but still a very solid Republican win: Reagan won 51 percent, Carter 41 percent, and an independent candidate, Congressman John B. Anderson of Illinois, who had run in that year's Republican Primaries, 6.6 percent, though he didn't take a single County, let alone State, and didn't exceed 16 percent in any State.
The Republicans also gained control of the Senate, and what turned out to be not a numerical majority in the House of Representatives, but frequently a "working majority" of Republicans and conservative Southern and Western Democrats that occasionally outflanked the Speaker of the House, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill of Massachusetts.
The Congressmen elected in the Class of 1980 became known as "the Reagan Robots," for so rarely opposing him on any vote. The only ones left, 40 years later, are Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Congressmen Hal Rogers of Kentucky and Chris Smith of New Jersey's 4th District -- which was my family's District until the 1980 Census led to us being put into the 12th.
It was exactly 1 year since the Iran Hostage Crisis began. Carter took the podium at a Washington hotel -- it would have been against recent campaign laws to hold the election party at the White House -- and told the audience, "Four years ago, I promised you that I would never lie to you. So I can't say that it doesn't hurt." He kept plugging away, trying to get the hostages out.
Meanwhile, on November 7, Bette Midler released her album Divine Madness. On the 8th,
Motörhead released Ace of Spades. On the 10th, Voyager 1 took the best pictures yet available of the planet Saturn. Too Close for Comfort premiered on ABC on the 11th. On the 14th, Martin Scorcese released Raging Bull, based on the memoir of former Middleweight Champion Jake LaMotta, played by Robert De Niro. On the 18th, the country-themed variety show Barbara Mandrell & the Mandrell Sisters premiered on NBC.
The 19th saw the premiere of Heaven's Gate, a revisionist Western whose filming delays and high cost (by the standard of the time) bankrupted United Artists, forcing its buyout by MGM, and made it the standard by which all "movie bombs" are judged. (Kevin Costner's films Dances With Wolves, Waterworld and The Postman would all be nicknamed "Kevin's Gate," but only the last of them failed to make a profit.) On the 21st, REO Speedwagon released High Infidelity, and a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas killed 85 people.
That night, Dallas aired the episode "Who Done It," to answer the question on everyone's mind. The viewing audience was estimated at 90 million people, breaking the record of 78 million set by the final episode of The Fugitive in 1967.
Spoiler Alert for a 40-year-old episode: J.R. Ewing was shot by Kristin Shepard (played by Mary Crosby, Bing's daughter), sister of J.R.'s wife, Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) -- and also J.R.'s mistress and, she was claiming, the mother of J.R.'s unborn child. She thought she had J.R. checkmated: He wouldn't let his child be born in prison. Instead, he set things up so that she left town with child support, a.k.a. hush money.
A year later, she returned with a baby boy. But it wasn't J.R.'s son: She had a miscarriage, and this was a new baby. Not that she wanted the Ewings to know that. But she had a drug overdose at the Ewings' Southfork Ranch, and fell into the pool and drowned. Her son Christopher was then adopted by J.R.'s brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) and his wife Pam (Victoria Principal).
Actor Steve McQueen died of cancer, only 50 years old, on November 7. Hockey pioneer Conn Smythe died on the 18th, actress Mae West on the 22nd, actor George Raft on the 24th, and Catholic activist Dorothy Day on the 29th.
Actor Luke Hemsworth was born on the 5th, actress Vanessa Minnillo Lachey on the 9th, actor Ryan Gosling on the 12th, musician Isaac Hanson on the 17th, baseball pitcher and irritant Jonathan Papelbon on the 23rd, and Yankee star Nick Swisher on the 25th. Bosom Buddies debuted on ABC on the 27th, with Billy Joel's "My Life" as a theme song, and launched Tom Hanks to stardom.
December started no better: On the 2nd, 4 American Catholics -- lay missionary Jean Donovan and Maryknoll nuns Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel -- were beaten, raped and murdered by a right-wing death squad in the El Salvadoran Civil War.
On the 3rd, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of Britain's fascists in the 1930s, who had been somewhat rehabilitated by the country's right-wing media in the 1970s, died; and actresses Anna Chlumsky and Jenna Dewan were born. The 5th saw the premiere of the incredibly campy "modern" version of Flash Gordon, and the 6th a terrible live-action version of Popeye starring Robin Williams. John Terry, a soccer player nearly as racist and nasty as Mosley, was born on the 7th.
*
December 8, 1980, 40 years ago. At 5:00 PM, former Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono left their apartment at the Dakota building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, to begin working on a new album. At the time, Classical composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein and actress Lauren Bacall also lived at the Dakota. John and Yoko had recently released Double Fantasy, and the lead single, "(Just Like) Starting Over," had risen to Number 3.
It likely would have reached Number 1 under any circumstances, since John really was starting over: He had been out of the public eye for 5 years, since the birth of his son Sean and the resolution of his immigration case in his favor. And so, Beatle fans were hungry for new material.
Before John and Yoko could get into the limousine that would take them to the Record Plant at 321 West 44th Street, someone approached them with a copy of the new album, and asked John to autograph it. He did. The Lennons then went to the studio, to record for an album that would eventually be titled Milk and Honey.
At 10:50 PM, they returned to the Dakota. The man who had gotten the album autographed was there again. He pulled out a gun and fired 5 shots. The doorman called the police. A police car came and took John to nearby Roosevelt Hospital. It was no use: At 11:00, he was pronounced dead, at the age of 40.
On December 9, 1974, almost exactly 6 years earlier, John had been in Los Angeles, and attended a game that was broadcast on ABC's Monday Night Football. The Washington Redskins beat the host Los Angeles Rams, 23-17, in front of 87,313 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. At halftime, John was interviewed by ABC's Howard Cosell. John told the national audience, "It makes rock concerts look like tea parties." Cosell also introduced Lennon to another guest, someone who would not seem like an obvious friend, but they got along just fine: The outgoing Governor of California, Ronald Reagan.
John's murder occurred during another Monday Night Football broadcast, the Miami Dolphins hosting the New England Patriots at the Orange Bowl. In the last minute of regulation, the ABC broadcast crew of Cosell, former New York Giants running back Frank Gifford, and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith got the word that John had been killed.
Cosell, whose background was in both law and journalism -- he had graduated from law school at NYU before moving into newspapers, and then radio and finally TV -- and who enjoyed being part of the story, had his reporter's instinct kick in: He didn't want to make the announcement. He thought it would be better if ABC News did. Gifford talked him into it, as the Patriots' John Smith came on to attempt a field goal to try to win the game:
Gifford: Time out is called with three seconds remaining. John Smith is on the line. And I don't care what's on the line, Howard, you have got to say what we know in the booth.
Cosell: Yes, we have to say it. Remember: This is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, perhaps, of all of the Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival.
On the broadcast, Smith, himself an Englishman named John, could be seen looking straight ahead, as if he had heard what Cosell said, which was impossible, and, on the words "dead on arrival," seemed to nod sadly. He missed the kick, and the Dolphins won in overtime, 16-13.
Of course, it wasn't a tragedy. If John had suffered a heart attack on the spot, or been hit by a car that jumped the curb, and died as a result of either of those things, that would have been a tragedy. This was a crime.
At this point, 10 days short of my 11th birthday, I had heard of The Beatles. But I only knew 2 of their songs: "Yesterday," which had been taught in our music class; and "Yellow Submarine," which had been sung on the PBS kids' show Zoom. Both of those were written by Paul McCartney.
I knew Paul's name, from the Japan story earlier in the year; and the name of Ringo Starr, who had starred in a movie that year, Caveman, and married his co-star from that film, Barbara Bach. But I was not familiar with the names of John Lennon and George Harrison: I was not listening to Top 40 radio, and there were, as yet, no TV shows with music videos.
The next morning, knowing none of what had happened the night before (I hadn't watched the game), I walked to Bowne-Munro Elementary School in East Brunswick, where I was in the 6th grade. I was told that John Lennon was shot and killed the night before. I misunderstood. I thought the kid who told me had said that Jack Lemmon was killed. His name, I knew, because he was one of the greatest living actors. He remained so until his death in 2001, from cancer at age 76.
Marilyn Morrow, the teacher in our 6th grade class -- I have no idea how old she was then, but she seemed too old to have been an original American Beatles fan in 1964 -- had put a poster of the Let It Be album up on the bulletin board, and did her best to explain to us what had happened, and what it was going to mean to the world.
By that point, a crowd had already gathered in Central Park, at the 72nd Street entrance opposite the Dakota. They would remain there until the City held an official memorial service on the Saturday.
In spite of the tributes and gatherings over the next week, it would still be a few years before I really understood just what John, and The Beatles as a whole, meant to the world.
The lame-duck Congress passed a law creating the toxic-pollution cleanup Superfund on the 11th. That night, Magnum, P.I. premiered on CBS. On the 12th, The Clash, already known to their fans as "The Only Band That Matters," released Sandinista!
On the 14th, former Yankee catcher and coach Elston Howard died of a heart ailment, and 8 people were shot, 4 of them dying, at a Bob's Big Boy in Los Angeles. At the time, mass shootings were not especially common in America. More bad news in fast food: "Colonel" Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, died on the 16th.
Former Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin died on the 18th, my 11th birthday. On the same day, singer Christina Aguilera was born. On the 19th, the films 9 to 5, Seems Like Old Times, and a new version of The Jazz Singer starring Neil Diamond premiered; and actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Marla Sokoloff were born. Soccer star Ashley Cole was born on the 20th. Admiral Karl Dönitz, officially Adolf Hitler's successor as Führer of Nazi Germany, sentenced to 10 years in prison for war crimes and unrepentant to the end, died on the 24th.
The 25th was not a Merry Christmas for the American hostages or their families: Although their Iranian captors gave them a Christmas dinner, it was their second in captivity. The films Altered States and First Family (starring Bob Newhart as the President) premiered.
Richard Chase, the serial killer known as the Vampire of Sacramento, was executed on the 26th. Tim Hardin, who wrote "If I Were a Carpenter" and "Reason to Believe," died of a heroin overdose on the 29th. And on New Year's Eve, Steve Winwood released Arc of a Diver, while sociologist Marshall McLuhan and Raoul Walsh, director of the 1940s film noirs High Sierra and White Heat, both died.
*
President Carter would work almost literally to the last minute of his Administration, on January 20, 1981, to end the Iran Hostage Crisis, before leaving to greet Reagan in front of the White House, and to ride with him to the Capitol with Reagan for the Inauguration ceremony.
As he was announced to the crowd gathered outside the Capitol, Sam Donaldson, ABC News' White House correspondent, knowing that the negotiations had been going well, but had not yet been finalized, asked, "Mr. President, have the hostages been released?"
Flashing his smile, famous but not seen so often those days, Carter said, "Can't say yet." Donaldson told a national TV audience, "Not yet. Not yet. They've cheated him to the last."
At 12:00 Noon, Eastern Standard Time, Reagan was sworn in by Warren Burger, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. At 12:35 PM, the announcement was made: The plane that the hostages were on had taken off, heading for Wiesbaden Army Airfield outside Frankfurt, West Germany.
Some conservative voters are so dumb (How dumb are they?), they believe Reagan deserves the credit for getting the hostages home. After all, he was President when they were freed, and he hosted the welcome home ceremony at the White House a week later. Some they believe that the reason the Iranians let the hostages go was that they were afraid Reagan would drop an atomic bomb on them if they didn't let them go while Carter was still President.
And so, the crisis was over. But things were still pretty bad in America. In his Inaugural Address, Reagan said, "These problems will not go away in days, weeks or months. But they will go away."
But things kept getting worse. In 1981, unemployment would begin a surge that would see it top out at 11 percent by the end of 1982. For the 1st time, a strike led to a midseason interruption of the Major League Baseball season. Reagan himself would be shot, and barely survive. So would Pope John Paul II. And President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, who negotiated a peace treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin with Carter's help, was shot, and did not survive.
Soon, 1980 would seem "not so bad."
But it was. To paraphrase Ervin Drake's song, recorded by Frank Sinatra: When I was 10 years old, it was a very bad year.
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