18 Years Ago

The dreaded shag carpet and vinyl paneling in the "before" stage



The year 1988 yielded great hope for me. It was the year I bought my first house, a bungalow in suburban Oklahoma that I worked with my father to transform. We pulled up the orange and brown shag carpeting and plastered over the vinyl faux paneling. We put in a Victorian fireplace mantel.

It was also the year I came to work for the same non-profit where I have played various roles over the past 18 years.

It was the last year of the Reagan Administration. Granted, the Bush 1 administration that followed was no improvement, but it planted a seed of hope that there could be better days than those we endured during the 1980s. I actually have some pleasant memories from the 1980s, but the dawn of the 1990s were much more hopeful and I time when I realized many dreams and ambitions that I had to put on hold during my late twenties. Nearly two decades on, I look back at that time with more fondness than I would have thought possible at the time.