The Signal That the Cynical 1970s Was Over
I don't know whether the event was historic in the sense that it changed the world, but the
Miracle on Ice is something of a dividing line in my life. I was still a bitter and angry young leftist when the USA hockey team took to their skates that night in Lake Placid; by the time they celebrated I was cheering "USA, USA!" It wasn't the end of my personal cynicism, but it was a major crack in the wall.
Nine months later Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected to his first term, and the US, which had been flat on its back for much of the 1970s (and would endure a sharp and painful recession in 1981-82) had finally gotten on the right track. By the time the decade was over, communism was thoroughly defeated, the Dow had begun its dizzying spiral upwards, and I was a registered Republican.
