1980--Last Year for Generation X

That year Hope had (made) her reservations:
Reagan had just clutched office,
Orwell's '84 within sight,
Big Brother became bigger.

Oil was almost cheap;
They could load the eager houseboat,
Weekend on a semi-gemstone lake blaring
Van Halen, Queen, Zeplin . . .

Cell phones were for the spoiled haves,
Computers still infants, Internet (mostly) for a cunning military.
Yet they could leisure chat and use blonde post-it notes
Before the late First Amendment was enhanced (to better guard them)

Summer Olympics in malevolent Moscow
Would see no U.S. athletes—Full coverage
On the (new) twenty-four hour talking head Cable News Network would tell all:
The U.S. held (in custody) her own "Olympics" for disillusioned athletes.

This is when Hope began to pack
Though Small Pox was executed (by the New World Health Organization)
Insulin now genetically engineered;
The U.S. refused grain to the sinister Soviet Union (something about Afghanistan)

Hope took flight by December, expatriated/exhausted.
John Lennon dead on the eighth.

A month later they said their commencement address
For the end of their teenage years