Book excerpt: The early 1980s were a time of great change in America. A recent invention, the personal computer, was quickly altering the nature of the workplace and reducing the need for jobs and workers to fill them. The runaway inflation of the 1970s was gradually being reined in, but the good news came at a price. As the government vowed to cut back on spending, companies went out of business at a record rate, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In this powerful story of love, dancing and courage, learn how the author struggled to hold his world together, even as it collapsed around him.