You’ll be happy to know things could be worse. For instance, unemployment is only 9.7%, but in September of ’82, it was actually 10.1%.
I can hardly remember that, and it didn’t matter because I had just implemented brilliant recession survival plan B. In other words, I was in the army and just about to arrive in Germany for 3 years of wine, beer, and travel. Munich, London, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Venice, Rome, and countless small towns all over Germany, England and France.
Oh, yeah, plus I had to fix electronics for the army and salute idiots, and the Soviets had nuclear missiles pointed at the building where I worked, but it was a small price to pay. It was fun, actually, knowing that when all hell broke loose you’d be dead twenty minutes before everyone else.
I was in my twenties, the cold war was fascinating, the enemy was complex, ruthless, and infuriating, but no one blew anyone else up, the future seemed somehow vast and inviting, as long as the nukes stayed put, and yes, the world did recover, the wall came down, dictators fell, economies boomed, and life got good for awhile.
It could happen again, right, sorta?
Granted, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Great Recession don’t have much romance in them, but if they’d take me at this age and send me with my family to Europe for three years, I do believe I’d sign up again.
Sergeant White, 55-years-old. Driving the autobahns again, only this time with my daughters. “See this wall, Anna, it was built by the Romans a couple thousand years ago.” If only.
