[SamAdams76]

I was waiting to go to Parris Island when Reagan was swept into office. That was a pretty memorable year for me. The U.S. Olympic team won the hockey gold medal (Mike Eruzione lived in next town over from me), I graduated high school, enlisted in the Marine Corps and Reagan got elected - though the full significance of that was lost on my until a little later as I was still only 18 years old and politically naive.

About a month after Reagan's landslide, John Lennon was shot to death. That affected me much more greatly at the time. Some 35 years later, I hardly think about John Lennon at all but I think about Reagan constantly.

[Ax]

I spent election night 1980 in an apartment in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, surrounded by a bunch of embassy staffers; I felt like a fish out of water. Was I ever wrong. Those State Department kids amazed me. AS a state’s final vote was announced, the hostess had a cut-out of the state placed on a much larger blank US map. By the time Carter conceded, there was general glee.