AMERICA, BEFORE THE FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION: When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Houston:

It was September 16, 1989 and Yeltsin, then newly elected to the new Soviet parliament and the Supreme Soviet, had just visited Johnson Space Center.

At JSC, Yeltsin visited mission control and a mock-up of a space station. According to Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie Asin, it wasn’t all the screens, dials, and wonder at NASA that blew up his skirt, it was the unscheduled trip inside a nearby Randall’s location.

Yeltsin, then 58, “roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement,” wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution.”

Of course he was right — but alas, eventually there was a revolution in both countries. As one blogger warned in 2006, “Americans Hate Their Fabulous Economy.”

It was great — literally the envy of the world — while it lasted.

Related: With a hat tip to the Gipper, Mark Steyn writes, “There’s a Bear in the Sand:” “Obama isn’t leading from behind, he’s leaving from behind: America is departing the world stage.”