American Dreaming - 1990's / Part I

At the cusp of the 1990’s decade, I was in the process of getting a divorce. I remember celebrating New Year’s Day 1990 with a few other couples and my soon to be ex-wife. We did a great job that evening of avoiding the “elephant in the room” and put on a very nicely false happy face for all in attendance.

That evening I think I drank a little too much which generally just puts me into a very quiet reflective mood. I don’t know if I spoke much to anyone that evening. I remember dancing with my wife and kissing her at midnight thinking that this is very likely the last of these kinds of events that I would ever by having with this group of people. I had already begun to fret about life “after the divorce”. Wondering what friends I would keep, what friends would be awkward in my presence and all the other changes that were looming large in my life.

Fortunately for me, I was lucky enough to get a job offer in the private sector that was approximately 100 miles away from my (then current) home. This afforded me the luxury of being a “weekend dad” while putting me into a different (more urban) environment where my career options were substantially better.

I entered into a role within the Information Technology function of a managed care firm as a data analyst. My job allowed me to develop some more computer skills and to play an ever more important role in a growing organization. With the dissolution of my marriage, I chose to focus on a career. I found that I had a lot more spare time on my hands now that there was no home really to “go home” to. My weekends were devoted to my son while the week was devoted to my job.

The 1990’s were noted for the advances in technology so my getting into IT at that point was very fortuitous. In the 1990’s the Internet would be developed (in two years 1992 by most accounts). By 1994, three million people were online which would increase to approximately 100 million people (worldwide) within the next four years.

It was in this decade that the US played an ever larger role in attempting to keep world peace. They did this in some cases alone but more often in alliances. The decade began with the US intervening in the Middle Eastern nation of Iraq. Sadam Husein invaded the nation of Kuwait which led to the US led intervention known as the “Gulf War”.

I remember having to explain to my son as I was watching the beginnings of the Gulf War invasion what the concept of war was and the reasons (as slim as they were) for why our government undertook that endeavor. His questions of innocent youth still conjure up some powerful emotions today when I think about the exchange.

After the thankfully brief Gulf War, the US attempted to oust General Adid to aid the starving children of Somalia. This effort was followed by an intervention in Haiti, Bosnia and in late 1999 the US joined NATO in conducting air strikes against Yugoslavia to assist in the massacres within Kosovo.

The decade brought the scourge of terrorism to US shores. In 1993 a bomb was detonated in the garage beneath the World Trade Center. In 1995, there was the shock of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

There was the violence exhibited and tried within the O.J. Simpson trial, the violence in the ATF raid on the Branch Davidians, the violence exhibited by the riots in South Central LA which resulted after the acquittal of the cops purportedly involved in the Rodney King beatings.

The decade saw the end of the George Bush presidency (the first one…) and the re-emergence of the promise in Camelot envisioned by the election of Bill Clinton.

For me, it was the decade that found me realizing some goals in my life, developed a new career in which initially I lost a balance within career and home life. I found a new love that helped me regain that lost balance. Had some wonderful opportunities to build IT infrastructure in three cities while preparing a dot com company for life post Y2K.


---Jim