24 years ago today---maybe it seems like no big deal now, but back then? The earth moved.

[DFW]

18. Yes, we've heard this often enough.

There are people who remembered like as having a slower pace, and no worries about where your next meal was coming from.

What they had to sacrifice to have these minimal guarantees was either quickly forgotten or, in some cases, never even seen as a sacrifice. Sort of like a local politician in a red state who has always been on the taxpayer payroll, never traveled or been to college, and hates "libbruls" because they are often from the north and have funny accents, and want to change their way of life (or so they fear). People who adapted well to life in East Germany often adapted badly to life in a western country. On the other hand, I have a friend in Dresden who is perfectly at home in the new Germany. He still speaks with a horrible (to my ears) Saxon accent, but he's a laid-back, dynamic, younger (to me, that is, he's in his early forties) guy who not only doesn't long for the old days, he doesn't even consider them relevant to his life now. He is truly a citizen of Germany, neither east nor west.