Finestkind

Part Two: The 1980s and the Ending of the Beginning

The decade of the 1980s brought with it some major historic change and impactful events, as our magical blue planet spun on its axis and made ten trips around the sun. In pop culture, there was the rise of MTV and music videos, video games, and widely popular movies such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Back to the Future, Top Gun, and The Terminator. In that evolving electronics industry, with its nascent computer and cell phone development, along came something called The Internet. This innovation and its rapid expansion would forever change almost every aspect of humankind interaction. As a senior citizen, I’ve had to be poked, prodded, and dragged into accepting this new reality, and the pace of our changing world is dizzying and somewhat concerning. Yet, I cannot deny, as I write these words (and correct and rearrange them!) on my computer, that there are benefits.

On May 18, 1980 Mount Saint Helens, in the state of Washington, erupted violently, the greatest volcanic explosion ever recorded in North America, killing fifty-seven people and destroying ten million trees. The HIV/AIDS epidemic would begin in 1981, killing over forty million people to date, and continue unabated for about fifteen years, until a three drug treatment “cocktail” became available, greatly reducing the death rate. The Iran-Iraq War raged for most of the decade, leaving 500,000 dead on both sides.

Seventy-three seconds after lift-off, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger blew up spectacularly, killing all seven of its crew while the world watched, in person and on television. About three months later, on April 26, 1986, the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant went out of control, blew up, and melted down; it was the worst nuclear disaster in history, releasing 400 times as much radioactive material as the Hiroshima atomic bomb. These and other spectacular failures should keep us humble, watchful, and proceeding with caution, as the life forms self-appointed to remake and oversee our magical blue orb.

The last half of the 1980s would see the auspicious entrance onto the world stage of a personal hero of mine, and the choice to grace Time Magazine’s January 1, 1990 cover as their “Man of the Decade,” Mikhail Gorbachev. “Gorby,” who would be the last leader of the Soviet Union, would introduce us to the terms “perestroika” (restructuring) and “glasnost” (openness/transparency), and be the conductor directing the orchestra performing the dirges for the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the dissolution of the USSR.

Closer to home, I guess it’s fair to say that the decade of the 1980s brought the most significant and radical changes to my life, as well. There would be some major changes to my logging business: Finestkind Logging would morph into Finestkind Land Mgt., and I would get much busier; I would learn all the nuanced versions of assets and liabilities. It’s the span of time in my life that I began with painful feelings of despair and hopelessness, and ended with opposite feelings of joy and contentment, the world my oyster! A whole lot of remorse, self-honesty, re-imagining, tearing down, and rebuilding, were needed to make that transition. I guess, on a personal level, I embraced my own forms of glasnost and perestroika.

The 1980s would begin with me newly married, a new father, and a nearly 20-year-old drinking problem. Saturday, October 23, 1982, would be the day I would begin my new sober life. Thinking back on it now, I can still feel the visceral remnants of the flood of emotions that I experienced that day. Shame, humiliation, and disbelief that I could be the kind of person that would, blindingly drunk, forcibly enter my estranged wife’s house, scaring her, and requiring deputy sheriffs to be called and cart me off to the county jail in South Paris. I was scared, too, as I envisioned a future without my almost three-year-old daughter in it. As I wore out the floor of the kitchen in an old West Bethel farmhouse, pacing in a nervous hangover sweat, I made a commitment to myself. No matter what it took, I would never let that demon resurface, and that meant staying sober.

I knew, on some level, what that meant, and what I was up against, of course. First and foremost I had to solve my long-standing dilemma: how do I stay sober in a world that embraces alcohol? That was my world, anyway. Family, friends, and associates that I knew then needed little excuse to include alcohol in their lives to enhance or enliven an event. While that interminably long weekend unfolded, as I paced the floors of that farmhouse, made several phone calls, and pondered my dilemma, I came, finally, to a life changing conclusion. I needed help.