In about two weeks we'll have a small annual celebration here at home on November 9, a 30 year anniversary this time. Maybe it will get some national news time, but in today's media, focused as it is on what celebrities did last hour, orange man bad, and other short attention span topics I doubt it. I remember following events in Europe in the late summer and fall of 1989 with great interest. The iron curtain rusting away, and jokes about "frequent fleeing miles", as East Germans fled through Hungary on "vacations" to get to the west. I remember the cold face of Eric Honecker on the news, not giving and inch and the bitter expression he had at the end of the celebration of East Germany's 40th anniversary October 7. Gorbachev's expression of sad disgust and the unsettled looks of the lesser leadership of the DDR behind both men.
I remember getting home turning on tv and seeing the people sitting on the wall, the bewildered look of the DDR border guards like uncertain guests at a block party. The cold war was over, everything had changed.
Whether you believe in "Ich bin ein Berliner", or "Mr. Gorbachev Tear down this wall", hoist a glass to freedom on November 9.
I remember getting home turning on tv and seeing the people sitting on the wall, the bewildered look of the DDR border guards like uncertain guests at a block party. The cold war was over, everything had changed.
Whether you believe in "Ich bin ein Berliner", or "Mr. Gorbachev Tear down this wall", hoist a glass to freedom on November 9.