1987

In 1987, I was still in Law School. I did not yet own a car, I was not married, I had no children, I had sold not a single short story. It was still two years before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, so the Cold War, which my younger readers know only from history books, was ongoing. Ronald Reagan was president.

This is also from 1987.

The man telling the joke is named Johnny Carson. His show was called THE TONIGHT SHOW. It was a late night talk show, a forum that, once upon a time, the forgotten art of telling jokes was practiced. Your ancestors used to have an art called comedy, and another art called drama. These things have been replaced by political correctness.