In the year that Robert Ludlum introduced readers to a brilliant assassin with a bad case of amnesia, while a hockey masked summer camp casualty slashed his way through movie theaters nationwide, another Jason was bourne and set loose upon spaceship earth.

Across the pond a cheeky little British outfit released their debut album named after a (possibly mythological) medieval torture device. Elsewhere a corpse painted falsetto formed the seminal Mercyful Fate and back here at home, that other King published an instant classic that taught us to all shine on.

Reagan beat Carter, Chapman murdered Lennon, and the word "yuppie" first appeared in print. But it was too late to turn back. I was already en route. And so it happened that a young Midwestern mother and her husband found themselves in a San Antonio hospital one star-crossed afternoon around 4:30pm, when I came crawling out to greet them weeks ahead of schedule.

They were duly shocked by the early arrival, for which I was in no way better prepared. My lungs weren't quite fully formed, and a million years later, 100K packs of Camels weren't enough to kill them. But all I knew about mortality back then, being new to the scene (or so I thought,) was that Pacman had just been released and I was hungry to meet some ghosts.