6) High School

The big news in the summer of 1974 was the utter shock of Richard Nixon's resignation over the Watergate scandal. I watched him address the nation on television, not knowing what he was going to say. The resignation was surprising and shocking. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

If there was a good thing about it, this presidential resignation demonstrated democracy in action. The president in a democracy must live by the same laws as everyone else.

Vice preseident Spiro Agnew had resigned some time previously due to a tax evasion scandal. He had been replaced by Gerald Ford, from Michigan, who was then sworn in as president.

I built, with some help, a really nice treehouse in the willow tree in our backyard. We also often went swimming at Chippawa. I became really interested in what went on underwater and about dolphins in particular. Flipper, from years before, had been one of my favorite shows on television.

I read about the other side of the Second World War, the Pacific Theater of Operations. I doubt that kamikazes really did that much to stem the tide of the war, but it made for a horrific story.

I read one of the most interesting articles that I have ever read. The May 1974 issue of National Geographic magazine featured a story about our growing knowledge of the universe and how unlike anything in our earthly experience it was. The article also featured stories of the astronomers and theorists who have contributed the most to our understanding of the cosmos. It gave me a lot to think about in terms of the universe and started me reading National Geographic.

I unfortunately continued to smoke cigarettes.

There was plenty of good music in the summer of 1974. There was "Radar Love" by the Dutch band Golden Earring.

"Jimmy Loves Mary Anne" was done by The Looking Glass, although I think this song was actually from a couple of years earlier.

There was "Oh Very Young" by Cat Stevens

"I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song" by Jim Croce

"Waterloo" by Sweden's Abba

"Rikki, Don't Lose That Number" by Steely Dan

"Be Thankful For What You've Got" by William DeVaughn

"Nothing From Nothing" by Billy Preston

"Rock And Roll Heaven" by The Righteous Brothers

"Sundown" by Gordon Lightfoot, who was from north of Toronto

The instrumental "Machine Gun" by The Commodores

"Dancing In The Moonlight" by King Harvest and

"Hang On In There Baby" by Johnny Bristol.

For ninth grade, in September 1974, I moved on to LaSalle High School. It was a more modern building, built about the same time as 60th Street School had been, I believe in 1956. It was a larger school than the more compact LaSalle Junior High School and we were given six minutes between classes, instead of four. The school had an open courtyard within it and there were more than two thousand students altogether.

The LaSalle school district was actually split according to which school students would go for ninth grade. Going by where I lived, I usually would have went to LaSalle Junior for ninth grade and then go to LaSalle Senior in tenth grade. But I was studying French and ninth grade French was only offered at the senior high school.

Students could, at that time, leave the school for lunch if they wished. There was a fast food restaurant, Henry's, next to the school and there was a pathway across the large field between the school and Burger King. The Red Barn and McDonalds were within easy walking distance of the school.

There used to be a lot of drive-in theaters around. They are relics now, but there was one right across the street from the high school, the Starlite.

In ninth grade, my main interests in school were divided between physics class and social studies. We were basically studying Asia and Africa that year and I learned a lot about the parts of the world that, until that time, I didn't know that much about. I knew a lot more about the Middle East in ancient times than I knew about what was happening there at present. I had always had an interest in other countries, but this class helped to expand that interest to the entire world.

In physical science, I first grasped why there were different elements and how molecular structures operated.

Many guys and girls joined fraternities and sororities (meaning brotherhoods and sisterhoods) and walked around in special jackets. I never joined a fraternity. I did not play any sports in school but was learning karate outside of school.

There was a boy who announced one day while riding home on the bus that someday he was going to have a daughter named Mercedes and that she was going to be an actress. Not long afterward, he moved away and I have never seen him since. But sure enough, today there is an actress named Mercedes Kastner.

One of the highlights of the school year was a field trip to the Ontario Science Center in Toronto, not long before the end of the school year. From the bus windows we could see the CN Tower (Canadian National) under construction. When completed, it was to be the tallest building in the world.

Outside of my classes in school, I developed a fascination with radio and electronic communications. I read all the books that I could get hold of on the subject and spent quite a bit of time looking through Radio Shack catalogs. I had a empty chocolates box that I used to store any electronic parts that I could find. I got a pair of walkie-talkies. This was around the time that digital clocks first arrived on the market.

I was also interested in wild animals and I began following football again. There were always Second World War movies on such as Kelly's Heroes and The Great Escape. There was a controversy as to whether Bigfoot (the Sasquatch) was real and we went to see a movie about it. Years later, it would turn out to be a fake.

As always, there was more great music.

The Rolling Stones did "It's Only Rock And Roll" and "Heartbreaker".

Stevie Wonder sang "You Haven't Done Nothing" in a song aimed at departed president Richard Nixon.

There was a band named for a strict gym teacher, Lynyrd Skynyrd, which did "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Free Bird".

Led Zeppelin had their biggest hit ever with "Stairway To Heaven".

There was a song about all the bands called "Life Is A Rock" by Reunion.

"Stairway To Heaven" and "Free Bird" were extremely popular songs. But, I preferred "Beach Baby" by the one-hit-wonder band First Class.

A band called KISS first became popular. There were rumors that it stood for "Kids In Satan's Service".

There was "Angie Baby" by Helen Reddy

"My Eyes Adored You" by Frankie Valli

"Bungle In The Jungle" by Jethro Tull

"Lady Marmalade" by Patti LaBelle.

A band called Sugarloaf, which had done "Green-Eyed Lady" several years before, now had "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You".

Bachman Turner Overdrive sang "Roll On Down The Highway".

Toward the end of the school year, there was "Shining Star" by Earth, Wind And, Fire

"Sister Golden Hair" by America

"He Don't Love You" by Tony, Orlando and, Dawn.

During the summer of 1975, after ninth grade, I continued reading about radio electronics. I gained an understanding of the many different radio frequency bands that were in use. I had a book about Marconi and how the first successful radio transmissions were accomplished. I found that removing the whip antenna from a walkie-talkie and replacing it with a wire half the length of the wavelength used gave the walkie-talkie greater range.

I read the book that was, at the time, a teenage favorite, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.

I sometimes rode my bike as far as a really nice neighborhood around 97th Street, at the eastern extent of Niagara Falls, and back. I did not know it but a few years later, this neighborhood would be world famous, it would be known as the Love Canal. Never would a place be so misnamed.

We often went swimming in the summer at Chippawa. One day, we took a tour of the Oak Hall mansion that is now the headquarters of Niagara Parks on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. We got a smaller dog, a sheltie, which my parents named Cindy, supposedly after Cinderford, back in England.

In the news, there were two assassination attempts on our new president Ford in the summer of 1975. Both would-be assassins were women, one a former member of Charles Manson's group, Lynnette Fromme.

Just after school had let out for summer, in June, Vietnam was suddenly back in the news. The Communists had waited for a while after the peace treaty of 1973. They saw America distracted by Watergate. They decided to launch an offensive to finally take control of South Vietnam, gambling that America wouldn't bother to get re-involved there again.

The Communists pressed forward, the South Vietnamese defense withdrew in chaos and disarray. Every evening on the news, there were roads flooded with South Vietnamese refugees trying to flee southward. Soon, Communist forces reached the outskirts of Saigon, which was the capital city of South Vietnam.

I watched on television as U.S. military helicopters continuously landed on the roof of the U.S. Embassy, ferrying people away. Next, the leader of South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu, was on television announcing his abdication.

Then, it was all over. All the effort that America had put into securing South Vietnam was apparently for nothing, at least according to some commentators on television.

There was, of course, music.

There was "Rocky" by Austin Roberts

"Fame" by David Bowie

"Don't Pull Your Love" by Hamilton, Joe frank and, Reynolds

"Bad Time" By Grand Funk.

A German band called Kraftwerk did "Autobahn".

During tenth grade, I continued my interest in radio and electronics. CB (Citizen's Band) radio, often used by truckers, was popular at this time, it was featured in the song "Convoy" by C.W. McCall.

Canada officially converted into measurement using the Metric System and I learned it myself. I studied geometry in school and was particularly interested in how it related to maps. For Christmas, I was given a really nice Rand McNally World Atlas and spent quite a bit of time studying maps and descriptions of countries around the world. The collection of facts in an almanac also intrigued me.

It was around this time that electronic calculators became widespread and messing around with numbers became like a hobby. I tried writing on my own, outside of school, by keeping a diary.

Another valued possession was a physics book that I bought. I found electrolysis to be very interesting and did some experiments on my own with it. By running an electric current through salted water, the water molecules could be broken down into their component hydrogen and oxygen.

On television were reruns of Star Trek and I got so that there was not an episode that I had not seen. There was the police show S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons And Tactics) about the special tactics team and the theme song from this show became a hit song in itself. There was also Charlie's Angels and Starsky And Hutch. Dragnet was originally a police serial show but there was a Dragnet movie as well that was on television.

There was always more music.

When I was in tenth grade, starting in the autumn of 1975, there was "Lying Eyes" by The Eagles

"Who Loves You?" by The Four Seasons

"My Little Town" by Simon And Garfunkel.

Later in the school year, there was "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen

"Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover" by Paul Simon

"Slow Ride" by Foghat

"Fly, Robin, Fly" by Silver Convention

"SOS" by Abba.

Toward the end of the school year there was "Rocket Man" and "Grow Some Funk Of Your Own" by Elton John.

One of my favorite songs ever was an older song that was often on the radio, "Almost Cut My Hair" by Crosby, Stills, Nash And, Young.

There was another older song, "I Got A Line On You" by Spirit, but it was around this time that I listened to it.

As summer 1976 approached, I began thinking about something that I had given too little thought to up to this point. That was about physical fitness. First of all, I took the pack of cigarettes that I had and when I had finished that pack, I never bought any more.

Muhammad Ali was very popular around this time and I happened to watch his match with Jimmy Young in the spring of 1976. I was to become a fan of Ali, but it is a shame that I watched this match because it was probably the worst fight of his career. Even though he won the 15-round decision.

I was studying karate, but going rather slow due to my lack of fitness. I began to investigate the training that boxers like Ali did. I put quite a bit of effort into learning more about exercise and physical fitness in general.

The summer of 1976 was not only America's 200th Birthday, it was a life-changing summer for me. I remembered in elementary school gym class, how when being tested for physical fitness I had not been able to do even one pushup correctly. One June day, I got down on our front porch and somehow managed to do five pushups, although probably not in the best of form. Life would never be the same again.

I plunged into working out with as much enthusiasm as I have ever went into anything in my life. I had a photo taken of me when I was about age 14 and looked chubby and awful. Things were definitely going to change, and to change this summer.

I happened to get hold of a book by a former Canadian Air Force officer who had been a fitness trainer. I learned every thing I could about physical fitness. The first thing to be understood is that there are four basic components to fitness; strength, stamina, endurance and, flexibility. Stamina means cardiovascular endurance and there is also the actual endurance of the muscles themselves. The trainee has to decide exactly what he wants to be fit for and what balance of these four should be sought.

I continued building the number of pushups that I could do. I did chinups on a branch of our willow tree. I was in disbelief at how much better I felt, except when I woke up really sore from a workout the day before.

Some of us would get together and spar with karate or boxing. I made a punching bag out of an old sack filled with dirt and newspapers. Around this time, I also underwent a spurt of growth which helped eliminate the moderate amount of fat that I had been carrying.

I followed Muhammad Ali and other boxers and got the book The Heavyweight Champions by Stanley Weston, about the champions of the past. I would read about John L. Sullivan, James J. Jeffries, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Joe Louis and, Floyd Patterson and how they had trained.

Exercise was a passionate new interest. But I did manage to do some other things during this summer. The fireworks at America's bicentennial were marvelous. I went to a local amusement park, Fantasy Island, for the first time. And I managed to get my first date, we rode our bikes to watch the movie, The Exorcist.

Still, there was music. Gordon Lightfoot did "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald", about a ship that had sunk in Lake Superior.

There was a band called Thin Lizzie with "The Boys Are Back in Town" and another song, "Jailbreak".

The Steve Miller Band did "Take The Money And Run".

The Captain And Tennille remade an old song with "Shop Around" and also did "Love Will Keep Us Together".

When eleventh grade began in September 1976, my interests were no longer primarily academic. Physical fitness was now top priority, it was something that I had ignored for too long and was now going to make up for lost time. I studied in detail the operation of all of the muscle groups of the body; the biceps, the triceps, the deltoids, the pectorals, the abdominals, the laterals and, the quadriceps.

I just wanted to keep improving. On that June day when I began exercising, I could only do five pushups. By the time school started back, I could do about 25 and by about the middle of eleventh grade, I first did 50. From that point on, I considered a successful set of pushups to be a minimum of 50.

I was always looking at the training routines of others to see what I could learn and trying to improve my own program. For Christmas 1976, I was bought an exercise device based on a spring inside a metal tube, known as a Bullworker. They used to be popular during the Seventies. Yogurt was becoming popular also around this time and peach yogurt became a lunch staple.

Another thing that I was making progress against is the stuttering that I used to suffer from. I had taken speech therapy in elementary school but it did not cure it. I did not suffer from stuttering as severely as some people do, it was only words beginning with a few certain letters that I had trouble with. But it was a nusiance.

In gaining aerobic fitness by exercising, I had more control over the coordination between my breathing and speech. I was still technically a stutterer, but I found that it could now be "overpowered".

I would like to take a minute to discuss stuttering. About one out of every hundred people suffer from it. More males than females stutter, but some of the worst stutterers are female.

Suppose that there is a fearsome tiger menacing your path in life everywhere you go. Now suppose you poke the tiger with a stick one day and find out that it is actually only made of paper. That is what stuttering is like, it is very much like a paper tiger.

Stuttering can most definitely be overcome. If you stutter, first of all talk more slowly. I notice that most stutterers simply try to talk too fast. Stuttering is actually what you do to try not to stutter.

One thing that is very, very important is not to worry to much about what people think of you. If you stutter a little bit, so what no one is perfect. If someone does not want to be your friend because you have a minor flaw like stuttering, then maybe you do not need their friendship anyway. Have this kind of attitude, gain some aerobic fitness and stuttering will dissipate.

If you know someone who stutters, remember that is a minor flaw. It is no more serious than a person requiring glasses for their eyes or braces for their teeth. Stuttering is often caused by such issues as poor coordination between breathing and speech and does not necessarily mean that a person is nervous.

Late January 1977 is a time that will not soon be forgotten in western New York State. It was that epochal (It is good to begin using new words occasionally) event known as The Blizzard Of '77. There is heavy snow where we live, but usually it does not last for a long time.

Well, this time it did. It kept on snowing and snowing and snowing, day after day after day. I was not out in it and I spent the few days that we had off from school because of the blizzard doing physical training. We had a Volkswagen Beetle that was not about to get through this snow. President Jimmy Carter declared it a state of emergency, which in the U.S. makes the situation eligible for federal emergency assistance.

In the spring of 1977, I ordered those Charles Atlas exercises that used to be widespread since the 1930s. The exercises involved no weights. I still do some of those exercises, or a variation thereof, today.

Long hair was still in style in the latter Seventies and I went a year without a haircut, from April 1976 to April 1977. Like many teenagers, I suppose it was a way of asserting independence. I began learning to drive in a Javelin (By American Motors, later bought by the French automaker Renault). But the car had some problems and my father traded it in for the Beetle, which had a standard transmission. I did my first developing of photographs that I had taken, in Print Shop class and went to my first job interview.

I had begun to think that I would like to study agriculture. At the time, I disliked cities at the time and wanted to be around everything green.

The most important new movie of the time was Rocky.

There was a tidal wave of new music this year.

Just after I began eleventh grade in September 1976, there was "Turn The Beat Around" by Vicki Sue Robinson

"Year Of The Cat" by Al Stewart

"Rubberband Man" by The Spinners.

There was the Bay City Rollers with "I Only Want To Be With You" and also "You Made Me Believe In Magic".

Every once in a while, a really landmark song comes along. Around this time there were two. There was "Love Really Hurts Without You" by Billy Ocean and "Already Gone" by The Eagles. Both songs will always remind me of exercise.

Later during the school year, there was "Hello, Old Friend" by Eric Clapton

"Walk This Way" by Aerosmith

"Rich Girl" by Hall And Oates

"The Things We Do For Love" by 10cc

"Young Hearts Run Free" by Candi Station.

There was a band that became popular with the unusual name of Blue Oyster Cult. The band had a symbol that was often seen on T-shirts at school which looked like a combination of a cross and a question mark. I did buy their album "Agents Of Fortune" and silk-screened their symbol onto a T-shirt in Print Shop class.

I also often took notice of old songs. I bought the record or tape recorded "One Fine Day" by The Chiffons and "Love Or Let Me Be Lonely" by The Friends Of Distinction.

A new term was being heard to describe the style of some songs. That term was "disco".

Toward the end of the school year, there was the ultimate in heavy rock instrumentals "Green Grass And High Tides" by The Outlaws

"High School Dance" by The Sylvers

"Jet Airliner" by The Steve Miller Band

"Hotel California" by The Eagles.

During the summer of 1977, the big news in music was the death of Elvis Presley. I was never really into his music. If I had a favorite Elvis song, it would be "Marie's The Name".

I was struggling with driving. In all honesty, I found cars to be alienating. They were very liberating to a teenager as far as getting around and particularly for dating. But it made it so that a guy was expected to have a car. Not having a car was not really much of an option. But then when one had a car, it meant working a considerable amount of hours just to pay for the car, the required insurance and, fuel. This often meant that school work suffered.

My parents were from overseas and it did not seem to really register with them that a car was a necessity to a teenager. Back in England, there were extensive bus routes going everywhere all day so that having a car was a luxury, rather than a necessity. I had learned to drive the Javelin, with an automatic transmission, but then they had traded it in for one with a standard transmission.

Cars aside, during the summer I went a number of times with my parents over to the park by the river at Chippawa. I would go for long walks from there to the area of the falls. I sometimes looked at the falls from the tower now at the casino that was once named for the Oneida Silver Company. I marvelled at the beauty of Oakes Gardens and this was the only time that I have been on the Maid of the Mist boat and the tunnel behind the base of the falls from Table Rock House. I also went for my first flight and only helicopter ride over the falls.

I got my first job, although I was paid in cash, cutting grass at the motel across the street.

The news in the summer of '77 was dominated by the Son of Sam. This was a serial killer named David Berkowitz. He committed his murders in New York City before finally being caught. I began to wonder why society produces people such as this.

The Son of Sam story did have a kind of ultimate happy ending, years later, when the killer converted to Christianity and began a ministry in prison. It is extensively documented online.

I began to look at that red New Testament Bible that I had been given back in eighth grade. I believed it, but at this point I only considered a Bible as a kind of good luck charm and if I read it, I would do well in school and physical training and a really wonderful girl might develop a crush on me.

The subject arose of me possibly going back to visit England. By this time, it had become little more than faded early childhood memories.

There was more music in the summer of 1977. Heart had "Crazy On You" and "Magic Man".

There was "Taxi" by Harry Chapin

"Love The One You're With" by Steven Stills

"Black Betty" by Ram Jam

"Christine Sixteen" by KISS

"I Just Want To Be Your Everything" by Andy Gibb.

"Telephone Line" by Electric Light Orchestra

Twelth grade, beginning in September 1977, was the last year of high school. I continued my devotion to physical fitness. Back in the summer, I had resolved to train for a straight one hundred days straight without a break.

This was actually not a good thing because the body grows not while it is training, but while it is resting after training. The idea behind exercise is that if one tears the muscles down by exercise, they will recover when he is resting, particularly sleeping, and, because of the increased demand, will recover to be a little bit stronger than they were before the workout.

I went with another trainee who was joining a boxing gym downtown. I figured that I could really go somewhere if I could just progress like I had been doing with exercise. Besides, I thought that this sport probably had the best overall physical training there was.

The gym would relocate and then close down for a time while funding was being obtained for a new location. By that time, I would have a job and be going to college and would be unable to return to training. But the physical training that I learned there, I have made extensive use of in workouts ever since.

As enthusiastic as I was about physical training, I did have trouble with diet. I improved my diet, but at nowhere near the pace that I improved in terms of exercise. In my last year of high school, I did gain a moderate amount of weight. I had a weakness both for Frito's Corn Chips and for a milk chocolate bar with peanut butter on it.

But I also had gained will power. I lost that weight to the point that when twelth grade ended with high school graduation, I was about seven pounds lighter than I had been at the beginning of the school year.

I tried to just keep improving all the time. In one silly youthful stunt, I resolved that I was going to do two thousand pushups in one day. I would get a piece of paper and keep doing sets of as many as I could and keeping track of them until I got to two thousand. I did it in the spring break around Easter 1977 and got my two thousand, but the next morning I was so sore I could barely get out of bed.

It was established that I would spend some time back in England after high school as a graduation present. By that time I had only vague memories of it and did not know what it would be like to go back there. I got a U.S. passport, which was accompanied by a letter sternly warning me of the consequences of getting caught with drugs in another country. Some countries still had the death penalty for drug possession.

In the spring of 1978, I got my first real job at Tops Supermarket. At the time, it was in the same building in the Pine Plaza that the A & P had once been in. I went for a polygraph (lie detector) test and orientation in Buffalo first. Tops is a supermarket chain across much of the northeastern U.S. I worked first alternating between bagging groceries and collecting shopping carts in the parking lot and then on the evening maintenance crew. I wanted to save some money to take to England.

During the last year of high school, bowling was a favorite weekend activity. I went with some others to see Saturday Night Fever at the movies. A military jet crashed near Niagara University. We went on a field trip with school to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).

I got my real start in writing when a teacher made a deal with me. My job at Tops had maybe affected my school work and I was in danger of failing a class called Writing For Advertising. Without the credit for that class, I would not have enough credits to graduate and I would have to go to summer school. The teacher said he would give me a chance to catch up with an extra credit writing assignment but that it had "better be good".

It must have been good enough because I got through the class and graduated. This gave me the idea that I could write. Soon, I would be on my way back to the old country.

On our Class Day, I had rented a white tuxedo. The song that was chosen for our class song was the old Beatles song "Long And Winding Road". My parents got me a really nice class ring.

Just before the end of school, near the end of the school day, I heard a very loud crash. A former student and another one that was shortly to graduate with us had been in a car. The former student had been driving, he had been with our class but had left school.

The car was going down 80th Street, adjacent to our school, at extremely high speed. The car had run off the road and hit a large tree. The car had been obliterated. They had both been killed instantly.

For a while, the car had been put on display at one of the main intersections of Niagara Falls as a warning against dangerous driving. A little while before the crash, I had been collecting shopping carts in my job at Tops Market when the one who was driving the car walked nearby. He said "Hi, Mark. I'll be getting my car soon. I'll take you for a ride in it".

Anyway, my last year of high school was really a time for music. Around the beginning of the school year, there was the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. The Bee Gees had been around for years, but it the spring of 1978, they really hit their stride. They dominated the charts much like the Beatles dominated their day. The Bee Gees were from a place that does not really get much attention paid to it; Britain's Isle of Man.

Around the beginning of the school year, there had been "Help Is On It's Way" by the Little River Band and "Hey, Deanie" by Shaun Cassidy (a great song).

Disco was gaining ground, there was "Flashlight" by Parliament and "Disco Inferno" by the Trammps.

I actually became very fond of a song from years before that I tape recorded, "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and, Young.

This is also when I first really noticed another older song "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones.

It was toward the end of the school year that new music seemed to really come quickly.

There was "Shadow Dancing" by Andy Gibb

"Jack And Jill" By Raydio

"Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" by Meatloaf

"Peg" by Steely Dan

"Ego" by Elton John

"Because The Night" by Patti Smith

"Magnet And Steel" by Walter Egan

"Everyone's A Winner" by Hot Chocolate

"Thunder Island" by Jay Ferguson

"Dance The Night Away" by Van Halen

"Copacabana" by Barry Manilow.

"Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton

There was a band that I first heard of, Foreigner, with "Hot Blooded" and later I would hear "Double Vision".

The band called Sweet made the brilliant observation that "Love Is Like Oxygen".

Saturday Night Fever was followed by another movie and soundtrack that I liked. It was simply called "Grease".

High school graduation in 1978. No one who signed my yearbook left an email address. The letter strings www, http, com, org or, edu would have been meaningless strings of letters that one might see on a car license plate. No one talked on cell phones. Relatively few people could even use a typewriter effectively.

Computers were large appliances that displayed block text. The idea of computers resembling television screens and having cartoon-like icons was unimaginable. Photography used standard chemical film.

The outside world was relatively backward. Few people knew anything about a distant land called Iraq. It was where dates were grown and where the ruins of Babylon and other ancient kingdoms were located. Iran was a staunch American ally in the Middle East ruled by a regal monarch known as the Shah.

Islam was a distant and foreign religion. Most people only heard about it when tensions between the Arabs and Israel flared up or when they watched interviews with Black Muslim athletes in America like Muhammad Ali or Kareem Abdul Jabaar. (I always thought that Moslem, rather than Muslim, was the more correct spelling).

Factory jobs in Niagara Falls were secure. One would hear of a guy who had gotten into Carborundum, DuPont, Harrison or, Goodyear and felt that he was all set for life.

One of the newest and nicest neighborhoods in Niagara Falls was the area from 95th to 102nd Streets. It was known that some chemicals had been buried in the area years before. But this area represented the kind of secure suburban dream that America was all about.

The pope was an obscure figure hidden away in a cloister in the Vatican somewhere. The average Catholic probably didn't even know the name of the pope (it was Paul). The idea of the pope being a global celebrity, more popular than the Beatles, was utterly and completely unimaginable.

Things would change.