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I’ve Had a Crush on Iran Since ‘78
When I was seven or so my parents traveled to Tehran. It was 1978 and my dad, a very smart software engineer, had been recruited by OPEC. They were in the Iranian capital looking for housing.
For about six months, it was a done deal in our house: we were leaving Butte, Montana for Tehran, Iran.
Under the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and that of his father before him, the country had been moving towards modernization: Women’s rights, urban infrastructure, American ideals — Importing Western knowledge and experience, embodied by people like my dad, to further these aims.
I’d attended two grammar schools in two states by then. I thought about this move more than the others, for obvious reasons. But I was too young to do anything but collect scattered parts of a whole and make up the rest.
Then, one day, for me I mean, it was over. Things were upside-down in Iran and it was all crazy and Iran was off the table. It made me sad that we weren’t going. The Islamic Republic successfully overthrew the Shah and declared itself the ruling body of the country on my eighth birthday; Islamic Revolution Day is still celebrated on my birthday.
Eventually dad pivoted and we left Butte for Northern California.
