Dale Says

For more than 20 years I’ve been writing summaries of what’s going on in my life and in the world around me on my birthday. Here’s an excerpt from 1989 …

April 24, 1989

On my birthday I’m 38 years old.

This past year I fell in love, got engaged, started doing personal writing, and figured out what I want to do with the rest of my life. What a year!

Patty and I got engaged just before Christmas. The asking wasn’t a surprise, but the timing was. I had planned a special evening with dinner and a room at the Majestic Hotel in San Francisco. I had planned to ask her over a glass of champagne in our room after a romantic dinner. That afternoon, Patty gave blood, and then had a bad reaction afterwards and nearly passed out. I was called by the blood bank to go pick her up. She was very weak and initially thought she’d better stay in that night. So I paced the hallway in her apartment while she napped and tried to decide whether to cancel the dinner and special evening. Fortunately, she rallied and we were able to go out. She was much better after dinner and even better after a glass of champagne, so I asked her to marry me. She said “yes!” and then sealed the deal by calling her mother to tell her. It was a wonderful night for everyone! Just six months to go now until we’re married! I think we’re going to have a lot of fun together for a lot of years.

After struggling for a few years, I finally figured out what I want to do with the rest of my life — I want to experience as many of the beautiful things life has to offer as possible and describe them in writing. And now I’ve found someone else to do it with me. We’ll start this year by traveling to Europe in the summer and New Zealand this fall.

This past year brought in a new president — Reagan is out and George Bush is in. Bush is off to a rough start. When his honeymoon with Congress is over, he’s facing a Democratic-controlled House and Senate, and they want to make him look bad so they can get a Democratic president elected next time.

The last of the “Irangate” players (Oliver North) is being investigated by Congress, and he’s likely to be fried, as have been several other high-ranked government officials. The U.S. people are shocked by how deep this scandal goes, and many are losing faith in their elected representatives. We thought for awhile that Reagan might have to resign, but as with the rest of his presidency, he managed to wriggle out of this one, too.

The U.S. savings and loan industry is in big trouble. The Federal Government is trying to figure out how to come up with $300 billion to bail them out, after they made bad loans and executives pilfered billions of dollars.

U.S. banks, airlines, and telecommunications companies are busy buying each other, creating bigger and bigger companies.

The dollar continues to slide, at the government’s insistance.

Bill Walsh took the 49ers to another Super Bowl, then resigned at the end of the season. What a class act he is!