Born in 1987

If you were born in 1987, you arrived in a year when the decade's gilded machinery was showing its first cracks. On October 19th—Black Monday—the stock market lost twenty-three percent of its value in a single day, the largest single-day percentage drop in history, and the Wall Street confidence that had defined the eighties went suddenly, sickeningly quiet. The Iran-Contra hearings were on television all summer, Oliver North in his uniform becoming an unlikely folk hero to some.

But the economy recovered quickly enough, and the culture kept spinning. Michael Jackson's *Bad* album arrived in August. U2's *The Joshua Tree* was the year's serious rock statement—"Where the Streets Have No Name" filling arenas.

*Dirty Dancing* was the sleeper hit, Patrick Swayze nobody putting Baby in a corner, and the soundtrack was on every cassette player in every car. The first Starbucks opened outside Seattle—Portland, Oregon—beginning its long conquest of the American streetscape. *The Princess Bride* was the fairy tale that adults were allowed to admit they loved.

Fatal Attraction had everyone talking about adultery and obsession and rabbits. The Simpsons appeared as animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show. A gallon of gas was eighty-nine cents.

The fax machine was becoming essential office equipment. America was still the richest country in the world, still making it work, still shopping on credit.