No, I’m pretty sure he disappeared in 1999, and this was only discovered a decade later. That’s how slow news moved in the olden days.
Let’s see… I grew up through high school during the Cold War, with German reunification happening during my junior and senior years, and the fall of the Soviet Union, or at least the coup happening right before my first year of college.
I’d say that in many ways, things were good. The Russians weren’t a threat anymore, things were good economically, and seemed to be getting better, especially in the latter half of the 1990s, 2000 and 2001 when the internet boom started and really got rolling.
However, there was a vague sense of apprehension- nobody really knew what would be next, whether that would come in the form of a war, economic hardships, etc… Turned out to be both, but not in a way anyone would have foreseen.
Not a whole lot different than say… 2005-2008, except without the omnipresent low level fear from so many about terrorists and other equally improbable things.
The older I get, the more I’m starting to think that there are a lot of people out there who just have to be chronically afraid of something, be it nuclear war, terrorism, planet-killer meteors, etc…
On the matter of prosperity, it seems obvious in hindsight that the 90s were the good times, economically, but I can definitely remember that phrases such as “in today’s tough business climate” and “in these hard times” were still routinely heard. It was the same in the boom of the late 80s. People always think times are tough.
Right now, things probably are genuinely bad, but I always try to keep in mind that we we weren’t that happy with things when they were “good”, either.
A lot of trivial stuff was whipped into a frenzy. Remember the “satanists kidnapping bay-bees”?
I thought that was more '80s.
I’ve often wondered this, too, as I was a kid during that time period, and I don’t know how much my perspective of it being peaceful was due to that.
All I remember about the end of the USSR was that the map in my Kindergarten class changed. And that didn’t even happen right away–we just referred to the former USSR as the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Let’s go down the list, shall we?
There was the Gulf War. We really can’t ignore this event as so much of what has followed has sprung from this shoot. The sanctions, the no-fly zone provocations, the Oil for Food scandal - everything came out of the first war and led to the second.
We can argue forever about the timing of the Iraq War, and I think that is legitimate, but I don’t think we could have avoided that war without the Hussein regime coming down. Sanctions were starting to break down in the early 2000s and they already had been circumvented to an extent with the Oil for Food payoffs.
There was a significant recession in the early 1990s. The Asian financial crisis happened in 1997 and signaled slower growth in our country. Cure enough this happened within the next couple of years, along with the breaking of the dot-com bubble.
While the United States was doing pretty well economically to that point politically matters were a mess - worse than today, as a matter of fact. An impeachment that then stalls in the Senate is just the definition of an impassible political divide.
Let’s not romanticize this period. It had its problems, same as or worse than other times.
I guess it depends how far back. By 1997, I know I wasn’t allowed to the gate at O’Hare without a ticket as I tried to meet with a friend who was leaving the country and wanted to drop off a gift, but was denied access. I do remember being at the gate meeting people at Midway around 1994/1995, so I’m not sure when exactly it got stricter, but it must have been middle-to-late-middle 90s.
Disagree. There were pretty much two truly hot-button divisive political issues in the late 1990s – filibusters of judges and the impeachment proceedings (note that the vote to acquit Clinton on the impeachment charges was actually a bipartisan vote, with ten Republicans voting not guilty on one of the charges). More routine matters like the budget and debt limit were thoroughly debated, but got done. Even big, controversial things like welfare reform ended up being done with D’s and R’s working together.
Today, almost every single issue is subject to filibusters and party-line votes. Forget about budgets and the debt limit, even allowing FAA fees to be collected has turned into an ideological litmus test. I am not discounting partisanship 15 years ago, as there certainly were strong divides then – but I think they are much worse now.
Well one thing that was way different was that two jobs found me when I wasn’t looking at all. Not recruiters (“headhunters”) either, but just word of mouth with people who were friend-of-a-friends calling me up and having me come interview. Oh, I guess I need to create a resume’ and wash and iron a dress shirt tonight.
You could issue an IPO for LoseYourInvestment**.com** and the stock price would triple overnight. Cow-orkers were projecting their portfolio gains forward and expecting to retire at 35 or so.
Republicans were a little right of center, and Democrats were more left of center, but both were still close enough to center that it wasn’t a disaster if your guy lost.
I remember in the days just before 9-11, there was a huge debate in the news about whether or not states should ban cell phone use in cars (not texting, just talking).
I will take a stab. I am old so have some perspective 
I will also expand your question
My son once asked me (he was born in 1984) what it was like for me as a kid. To him, the cold war was history. The Berlin wall fell when he was 6-7.
I told him that it felt like the world was in decline. We were in conflict with the Soviet Union and WE WERE LOSING! (I know now that we really weren’t but that was the perception). Communism and the Soviet influences were expanding throughout the world and the West was in decline. There was the oil embargo, Watergate, Vietnam, Iran hostages, Stagflation. I remember the 70s as a dangerous time - full of crime and things just being…dirty.
The 80’s had me become an adult and experience the world as an adult. The economy sucked…hard to find a job. It didn’t seem as bad as the 70’s because Reagan was in…and no matter what you think of the guy…he really believed in the U.S. and the U.S seemed to be pulling out of its decline. The economy sucked but it didn’t seem as bad as the 70’s. 80’s were…ok.
90’s, which is what I interpret as pre-9/11 for the OP started out bad and good at the same time.
The bad - the economy SUCKED DONKEY BALLS again for the first half of the decade.
The good - Soviet Union fell apart and our first post-cold war war went very well. U.S. had some pride back
Once you get to 1996 - holy cow. 1996-2001 were some good times! Economy was sizzling. Job market was INSANE pro-employee (at least for me). My income went up 4x its total in 4 years. I felt wanted and valued. No cold war. No real bad tensions throughout the world. Hell, gas prices were even LOW!
IT WAS GREAT!
THe prez announced a balanced budget. I thought that maybe the U.S. had gotten past its ‘bad patch’ of the previous 30 years and things had ‘returned to normal’ and the rest of my life would be fine.
9/11
Since then - 2003-2007 were not bad…but we had much tension throughout the world. Not as bad as the cold war…but there. Economy felt…ok but not so good.
2008-present…well, you know. Negative after negative after negative. Getting tired of it.
I feel sorry for young people today (like my 18 year old daughter). However, when I was that age I didn’t have it much better.
Sorry to say, 1996-2001 was the abberation 
Too bad, cuz those were good times
I think that was more a matter of how crowded the terminals were than a security concern. The old terminal at the Fort Myers airport had the same restrictions long before 9/11, because the number of passengers had exceeded the terminal’s capacity almost as soon as it opened.