For the first 17 years of my life, my only knowledge of the world beyond West Virginia came from missionaries on furlough. They brought us trinkets from places like the Congo or Korea and showed us home movies of natives wearing colorful costumes in a darkened church basement. They never talked about Muslim countries, so I'd never even heard of Iran.

When I arrived in multi-cultural San Francisco, I was newly 21. It was 1978 and large marches and protests against the Shah of Iran were already happening there. I just didn't notice it much at first.

This is the story of what I learned there and how what happened in 1979 mirrors today's events.