There has been a lot said about Ronald Reagan this past couple of days, much more than I could ever express. Technically, he was before my time. As a child, I remember the contempt all my teachers had for our Idiot in the office and how endangered we were by the cowboy who wanted to push the button. I remember that the Berlin wall was permanent; the Soviet Union was indestructable and that we were going to just have to make peace with them. At least, that's what our teachers tried to get across to us whenever politics came up in those formative years. This was not what I heard when our president would give his speeches however. My father has always been interested in politics and I knew that he thought that Reagan was the best president in his lifetime, therefore he would never miss a speech or press conference. At the time, I wasn't really sure what was going on; I had more important things to worry about...such as my handball and kicksquare skills on the blacktop, whether my hairstyle or clothes was fitting in with my friends and of course, saving Zelda from the evil Gannon. My world consisted of a 20 mile radius for the most part, the real world might as well be a rumor. The first event I remember that truly had any meaning to me as far as world politics go was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall coming down. This wasn't supposed to happen...well, ever. It was a permanent thing; like my parents or school, like the U.S. Constitution that I had vaguely read or the sun continuing to rise in the East. In history, you read about the rise and fall of empires and countries all the time, but you get no real sense of what actually happened. It's all in the past and therefore, in a way, was always MEANT to happen. To be in a time with world changing events is something I'm still not used to, but it's given me my current love for history. The Soviet Union's demise was one of those epic events that shifts the entire balance of power in the world itself. Does that mean it was always meant to happen? Once you begin to look into the actual events, hell, observe them as they occur, you begin to see that the future really can be decided by individuals with vision and determination. Who says that Hitler was destined to lose WWII? He was winning in Russia until he took command and ruined his once great armies. What if he had never done this? How close are we all to destruction and upheaval in this world? Probably a lot closer than we'll ever realize. I'm obviously rambling, but I do, in fact, have a point. The Soviet Union did indeed collapse from it's own weight of empty promises and illegitimate government based on fear and violence, but the reasons it occurred in 1989 as opposed to 2189 can be traced back to one man with the clarity and faith to do the right things in order to bring this about. This man died last Saturday. Someday, I hope, people will read those stuffy history books about how the United States, the beacon of freedom or a "shining city on a hill", triumphed over tyranny and true monstrous evil and not just think, "Well, I'm sure that's what was meant to happen."