Several Irish hunger strikers died in 1981, including Bobby Sands (1954-1981), Patsy O’Hara (1957-1981), Raymond Mccreesh (1957-1981), and Joe McDonnell (1951-1981). Anwar Sadat (1918-1981), 37th Prime Minister of Egypt and 3rd President of Egypt, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was assassinated. Moshe Dayan (1915-1981), an Israeli general, also died. Omar Bradley (1893-1981), an American WW II army general, died. The Polish Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński (1901-1981), died. Robert Moses (1888-1981), a New York urban planner, died. Felton Jarvis (1934-1981), American record producer of Elvis, Willie Nelson, and other musicians, died. Bill Haley (1925-1981), American rock leader of Bill Haley & The Comets, died. Hugo Montenegro (1925-1981), American orchestra leader and composer of film soundtracks, died. Bob Marley (1945-1981), Jamaican singer and songwriter, died. Lowell Thomas (1892-1981), the great radio broadcaster, died. Bobby Sherwood (1914-1981), American bandleader and radio host, died. George Jessel (1898-1981), an American actor from my youth, died. Harry Chapin (1942-1981), American singer and songwriter, died. Hoagy Carmichael (1899-1981), American jazz composer, died. Allen Ludden (1918-1981), American television host of Password, died. Albert Speer (1905-1981), German Nazi architect and war minister, died. William Holden (1918-1981), an American actor, died. Jack Albertson (1907-1981), American actor and comedian, died. Natalie Wood (1938-1981), American actress, drowned. Edith Head (1897-1981), Oscar winning American costume designer, died. Will Durant (1885-1981), American philosopher and writer, died. Roy Wilkins (1901-1981), American civil rights activist, died. Howard Thurman (1899-1981), American philosopher and civil rights leader, died. Catherine T. MacArthur (1908-1981), American philanthropist died. Jack Northrop (1895-1981), American airplane manufacturer, died. Nelson Algren (1909-1981), an American author, died. William Wyler (1902-1981), American movie director, died. Paddy Chayefsky (1923-1981), American screenwriter, died. William Saroyan (1908-1981), American author, died. Michael Maltese (1908-1981), American screenwriter, died. The following actors and actresses died in 1981 also: Richard Boone (1917-1981), Barry Jones (1893-1981), Margaret Lindsay (1910-1981), Richard Hale (1892-1981), Arthur O’Connell (1908-1981), Jack Warner (1895-1981), Lola Lane (1906-1981), Melvyn Douglas (1901-1981), Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981), Vera-Ellen (1921-1981), Frank McHugh (1898-1981), Robert Montgomery (1904-1981), Michael Granger (1923-1981), and Barbara Bedford (1903-1981). Do you know someone who died in 1981?
Disasters in 1981
Earthquakes hit Sichuan, China, killing a 150 people and Athens, Greece, killing 22 people, injuring 400 people, and destroying 4,000 houses. The Indonesian passenger ship Tampomas II caught fire and capsized in the Java Sea, killing 580 people. The overcrowded ferry boat Sobral Santos II capsized in the Amazon River, Brazil, killing at least 300 people. While attempting to rescue those on board the Union Star off the coast of South-West Cornwall, England, the lifeboat Solomon Browne was lost with all its crew, killing 16 people. I can remember the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in Kansas City, Missouri, that killed 114. I could not believe that it happened. The No. 21 Mine explosion in Whitwell, Tennessee, killed 13. There was an explosion at a mine in Záluží, Czechoslovakia, that killed 65 people. There was a gas explosion at a coal mine at Hokutan, Yūbari, Hokkaidō, Japan, that killed 93 people. Seven coaches of an overcrowded passenger train fall off the tracks into the Bagmati River in Bihar, India, killing between 500 and 800 people. In Greece, 20 fans of Olympiacos F.C. and 1 fan of AEK Athens died, while 54 were injured, after a stampede at the Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraeus, at the end of a soccer match. A fire at the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin, Ireland, killed 48 young people and injured 214. Heavy snow caused several houses and buildings to collapse in northwestern Japan with 152 people killed. As far as I can tell, there were only two plane crashes in 1981. An Inex-Adria Aviopromet McDonnell Douglas MD-80 struck a mountain peak while approaching Ajaccio Airport in Corsica, killing all 180 people on board. A Northrop F-5 crashed during a military exercise, in Babaeski, Turkey, killing 1 crew member and 65 soldiers on the ground. Meanwhile military skirmishes took many lives in 1981. In El Salvador, army units killed 900 civilians at the El Mozote massacre. An Islamic Dawa Party car bomb destroyed the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 61 people in a suicide attack. Israeli aircraft bombed Beirut, destroying multi-story apartment blocks containing the offices of PLO-associated groups, killing approximately 300 civilians. A bomb exploded at the United States Ramstein Air Base in West Germany, injuring 20 people. What was the worst disaster that you remember from 1981?
Great events of 1981
Besides the Iran release of 53 Americans, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, the first woman Supreme Court Justice, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di, and the rise of AIDS, there were other world-wide events in 1981. François Mitterrand became the first socialist President of the French Fifth Republic, so that France voted to abolish capital punishment. Belize, formerly British Honduras, Antigua, and Barbuda gained independence from the United Kingdom. The first London Marathon started with 7,500 runners. The Church of England General Synod voted to admit women to holy orders priesthood. The first DeLorean automobile, a stainless-steel sports car with gull-wing doors, rolled off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. Spain became part of NATO. Greece entered the European Economic Community as Andreas Papandreou became its Prime Minister. In Riyadh, the Gulf Cooperation Council was created among Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet was sworn in as President of Chile for another 8-year term. Around the end of 1981, China became the first country ever to reach a population of one billion people. Pepsi entered China with its first bottling plant in China. A panda was born in Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, the first panda to ever be born and survive in captivity outside of China. Pope John Paul II received a delegation led by Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa at the Vatican. He also visited the Philippines. However, he was shot by Mehmet Ali Ağca, a Turkish gunman, at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, but he recovered. President Ronald Reagan signed the top-secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), authorizing the CIA to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua. A Solidarity Day march, in support of organized labor, drew approximately 250,000 people in Washington, D.C. The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, was born in Norfolk, Virginia. A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selected Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The first game of paintball was played, in Henniker, New Hampshire. The use of crack cocaine, a smokeable form of the drug, was first reported in the United States and the Caribbean. The US Space Shuttle program began a crewed reusable spacecraft that returned from orbit with the space ship Columbia. The E-mu Emulator sampler keyboard with floppy disk operation was unveiled with Stevie Wonder as its first user. Luxor AB presented the ABC 800 computer. The original Model 5150 IBM PC (with a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 processor) was released in the United States at a base price of $1,565. Donkey Kong was released, marking the first Donkey Kong and Mario smash hit arcade game developed by Nintendo in Japan. The Nobel Prize for Peace went to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. What do you remember about 1981?
I was back at Montgomery Ward Outlet Store
When I showed up at Wards in 1981. It was like I had never left. There were many of the same people who had been there two years earlier when I left. Instead of being the furniture manager I was an appliance salesman. Everyone there seemed to know that I was going to be the appliance sales manager. It was simply a matter of time. I think within a couple of months, it was official. Bill Gardner was retiring and I would be the new appliance sales manager. I would get a salary plus 1% of all the appliances sold. I had to go back to the warehouse every day to get appliances. Some of the warehouse people were happy to see me come back. I had to contact the repair department at Rosemont. I had to have the salesmen sell service contracts. I had to deal with customer complaints. Once again, I would not be making phone calls, but receiving phone call complaints. Have you ever been pleasantly surprised when you returned to some place?
The decision
I went home that day in 1981, and told Margaret what happened. I had turned down a job to return to Montgomery Wards. Then she asked me if I liked working at Wards? Did I like working at Prudential? The answer seemed simple. I preferred the work atmosphere at Wards over the Prudential office work. She pointed out that Dale Hoffman reached out to me. I had not reached out to him. I was not asking him to take me back. He was asking me to come back. On top of that, it would mean a steady income. However, I wondered if things had changed at the Ward’s Outlet store. Would it be same? After all, it was two years since I had been there. I was going to wait and see. Finally, I decided to go back to Wards. I think that I decided that I would start at the beginning of the next month. I told the people at Prudential. They all said that I had not given it enough time. I would be fine. Richard Van Dyke was one of the few who said that it would be good idea to do something else. A couple of other people wished me well. I cleaned out my office and left. Have you ever switched jobs?
The plan
Dale Hoffman then had a plan for me. He was going to take early retirement in a couple of years and sail around the world on his boat. He could make sure that I would be the new store manager of this store in Franklin Park. He wanted it to be in good hands. Now this was more interesting. There was no guarantee, but a strong suggestion. Bill Gardner was having a hard time as the appliance manager. He was going to retire in the next couple of years. I could become the appliance manager until Hoffman retired. This was a plan that made some sense. In the meantime, I would be an appliance salesman since I already knew enough about furniture. I went from this lunch feeling that things had turned around for me. Somebody wanted me, even if it was back at Montgomery Ward. At least, I would have a steady income. Still, there was the problem that Hoffman might not be able to deliver on any of these promises. It was ten years since I first showed up at the Franklin Park Ward’s store to discuss my future with Dale Hoffman. Now I was doing it again. It all seemed strange. Have you ever considered going back to the place where you once worked?
The lunch with Dale Hoffman
I drove north on Manheim Road. Dale Hoffman and I met at some restaurant that I had never heard of to have lunch. We met and he seemed congenial. I explained what happened to me on the CBOE. I had left there at the end of 1979. He seemed interested and listened. I had tried selling outside signs, but that did not work. I was now selling insurance for Prudential. He asked me about my wife and child. I then asked him how he was doing. He told me that it did not work out for him at the Montgomery Ward store he had been at. In fact, when Harry Haggstrom retired, they asked him to come back to the Franklin Park Warehouse store. He told me that Mary Burgess was no longer there but that Connie Bettilyon was still there. After I left, Dave Mylnarski had became the furniture manager. Don Smole had moved to another Montgomery Ward store as an appliance manager. Thus, Dale Hoffman had made Bill Gardner the appliance manager. I found this all very interesting, since he was telling me what had happened at the Franklin Park store after I left. I had not tried to keep up with things there. Jerry Syndorowitz had left to sell paper cups in Atlanta, Georgia. I was up to date on things at Montgomery Ward. Then he asked me if I wanted to return to the Montgomery Ward store in Franklin Park. My first response was, “No. I was okay where I was.” Then he posed the question differently. I had left Wards to be an options trader. That did not work out, why not come back to Wards since that did work out for me. That struck me. It was not that I disliked working for Wards, but I wanted to do something different, options trading. This was the first time that maybe it made sense to go back to Montgomery Ward. I would have the same boss and I knew all the people. Would that be going back instead of moving on? Did he really want me back there?
The telephone call
Sometime in late 1981, I got a call from my old boss at Montgomery Ward, Dale Hoffman. I was surprised to hear from him since he had never called me at home when I worked for him. I was taken aback. He said that he wanted to have lunch with me. This was even more strange. We had rarely gone out to lunch together when I was working at Montgomery Ward. This all seemed odd. I told Margaret about it and she said that I had nothing to lose by going out to lunch with him. Besides as a Prudential salesperson, I should reach out to people. I assumed that he wanted to catch up with what I was doing, and I wanted to know what he was up to. I decided to take up his invitation to have lunch with him. Have you ever received a call from someone in your past?
Life as a Prudential insurance agent
The end of my first year as a Prudential insurance agent making a $1,000 a month was coming to an end. I would have to rely on my sales for income from then on. I was fully licensed as an insurance agent in life, health, fire, and auto insurance, so that I could sell all these policies. The problem was that I did not have a clear market. I had tried newlyweds and those having children that were published in the local papers. It was a lot of work to match their names and addresses and get information to provide their phone numbers, just to hear them say that they were not interested. In fact, I was a person who liked to talk to people, but not on the phone. I liked learning about the various life insurance policies, but I was having a hard time finding people who might be interested in them. For most people, insurance would help their family, if they died. Most people did not like to think of death. They were too young to die. Another guy working there at the Prudential office asked me if I really liked it there. I had to say no. However, I did not know what else to do. I thought about going back to teaching, but then I was haunted by all kinds of recriminations against me, because I had been a priest. Nobody seemed to mind that I was a former furniture manager. There were no recriminations about that. I had decided to stick it out at Prudential. Margaret had an income as a school teacher and we still had a little money in the bank. I just had to be a little frugal and all would be okay. Do you have a happy workplace?
The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, July 29,1981
Margaret and seven-year-old Joy were all excited about the wedding of Princess Diana (1961-1997) and Prince Charles (1948-) of England in the summer of 1981. They got up early to watch it live on TV on a summer Wednesday. In fact, Joy slept on the couch so that she would wake up in time. I was not as interested. Diana was the twenty-year old fairy princess. The older Charles was the thirty-three year old prince heir to the British throne, becoming King Charles III in 2022 at the age of 74. Diana was a member of the Spencer family, who led a fairy tale life, until it all fell apart with her death at age 36. This traditional wedding service took place at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London with the Dean of the cathedral and the Archbishop of Canterbury there. Notable figures in attendance included many members of other royal families, republican heads of state, and members of the bride’s and groom’s families. After the ceremony, the couple made the traditional appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. The United Kingdom had a national holiday to mark this wedding. Their marriage was widely billed as a “fairytale wedding” or the “wedding of the century,” watched by an estimated global television audience of 750 million people. Many street parties were held throughout the United Kingdom to celebrate this occasion. The Queen and the royal family were taken to the cathedral in eight horse drawn carriages. Three choirs, three orchestras, and a fanfare ensemble played the music for the service. The royal couple had seven bridal attendants. There were 27 wedding cakes. It was a big deal. Margaret and Joy really enjoyed it. However, the couple separated in 1992, and divorced in 1996 after fifteen years of marriage. They had first met in 1977. Their engagement became official on February 24, 1981. Do you remember the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Di?
Gene Finnegan Remembers Living Eighty Wonderful Years 