A walk down memory lane: headlines and fun facts from 1980
- Price of a loaf of bread: 50 cents
- Price of a gallon of gas: $1.22
- Minimum wage: $3.10 per hour
- Former Beatle, John Lennon was shot and killed in New York City
- Post-It Notes were officially introduced to stores in the US
- Pac-Man was released to arcades
- The US boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
- War broke out between Iraq and Iran
- Mount St Helens erupted
- The world tuned in to the popular soap, Dallas, to find out the answer to this pressing question: “Who Shot JR?”
- Rubik’s Cubes hit the stores
- The computer modem was invented
- CNN began broadcasting as the first 24-hour news station
- Ronald Reagan was elected as the 40th President of the United State
- Top five TV shows: Dallas; The Dukes of Hazzard; 60 Minutes; M*A*S*H; The Love Boat
- Box office hits: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back; The Shining; The Blue’s Brothers; 9 to 5; Airplane!; Coal Miner’s Daughter; Caddy Shack (ok, so Caddy Shack wasn’t really listed as a box office hit, but Steve loved it!)
- Billboard #1 singles — summer of 1980: It’s Still Rock-N-Roll to Me, by Billy Joel; Magic, by Olivia-Newton John; and Sailing, by Christopher Cross.
- The earth-tones favored in the late 70’s were still popular: harvest gold, avocado green, pumpkin orange, chestnut brown (and I still have the crockpot to prove it!)
- On August 1, 1980, a young couple in a small Iowa town spoke these vows to each other: “I take thee … to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge myself to you.”
As 20-year-old kids we really had no idea what these words meant. We didn’t ponder the exciting possibilities of the “for better,” nor the potential pain of the “for worse.” We just knew we loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together! As the years unfolded, we did indeed experience the better, the worse, the richer, the poorer, the sickness and the health. But we’ve experienced all of this together, holding tightly to the hand of the One to whom we spoke our vows. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken (Ecc. 4:12).
Happy 39th anniversary, Steve. I can’t wait for the next 39!
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (Ps. 139:16).
Bev Roozeboom 