so 20 years ago i was 19 & working overnights at this large store (think super target, without the thoughtful design) putting myself through school. i remember this as if it were yesterday – i was on break, sitting in the darkened mcdonalds that was in the middle of the store reading the newspaper that had just been delivered. i remember reading the headlines and looking at these amazing images of people rejoicing and celebrating. having been a child of the cold war, the news that the berlin wall went down was something that was just simply hard to believe, yet here it was – in all it’s glory. chunk by chunk it fell. patience and time won out against politics and war.
the wall had simply lived out it’s purpose and via a mistaken announcement by a soviet reporter, the course of history would be altered forever.
that day, along with a few others from my formative years (the space shuttle challenge disaster, president regan being shot) is so indelibly etched in my mind – it must have been truly amazing to be in germany during that time, and equally amazing that in the 20 years since, a generation has grown up with no knowledge of what it was like to be divided by hate and fear.
I know that the subject of this post isn’t the most oringinal, but on that day, we really were all berliners.
