25 nostalgic things you remember from a specific year or decade!

[retrorussell]

23. Tiger Woods wins the Masters, becoming the first PGA golfer to have taken 4 straight majors.
24. Some top songs: Clint Eastwood, Lady Marmalade, Jaded, Space Between, Hash Pipe, Standing Still, One More Day, I'm A Believer, Drops Of Jupiter.

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And an R.E.M. song I like that played on the music PA at work: ALL THE WAY TO RENO

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25. Various debuts: The doll line BRATZ, Lemon Coca-Cola, Game Boy Advance,

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Kinder Joy, Mountain Dew AMP, GameCube,

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and Rockstar drink.

[retrorussell]

2002:
1. The Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City.  The Salt Lake Organizing Committee is accused of bribing the International Olympic Committee to allow the city to host the Games, after 4 previous failed attempts.  Australia wins their first gold medals ever at the Games, and controversy occurs when a Korean speed skater is accused of "blocking" and subsequently disqualified, giving the Gold to an American.
2. A major air show disaster occurs in the Ukraine when a fighter jet crashes into spectators while performing aerobatics; 77 die.
3. Chechen rebels in Moscow take control of a theater and hold its patrons hostage; a rescue attempt leaves around 170 dead.
4. The SARS epidemic begins in China.
5. The Department of Homeland Security is established.
6. This was my last year on the job as night manager at the Walker Road Fred Meyer department store.  I had enough of witless employees, excessive work, and indifferent superiors.  Quit near the end of the year.  I had some money left over to see me through my next job, which I actually could not find for just over a year!  The job market was really tough at this time.
7. The first Academy Award for Best Animated Film goes to SHREK.  Cartoon tv debuts: CYBERCHASE, KIM POSSIBLE, THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMY NEUTRON: BOY GENIUS.  The sad episode of FUTURAMA, "Jurassic Bark" airs.  Animated films ICE AGE, TREASURE PLANET, LILO & STITCH, HEY ARNOLD: THE MOVIE, POWERPUFF GIRLS: THE MOVIE, SPIRITED AWAY and THE WILD THORNBERRYS: THE MOVIE debut.
8. Top movies: LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS, SPIDER-MAN, CHICAGO, STAR TREK NEMESIS, CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, MEN IN BLACK II, DIE ANOTHER DAY, SIGNS, STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES, THE TRANSPORTER, AUTO-FOCUS, THE RING,FEMME FATALE, 8 MILE, ABOUT SCHMIDT, MONSTER'S BALL, XXX, SUPER TROOPERS, PANIC ROOM, INSOMNIA, THE BOURNE IDENTITY, SCOOBY DOO, ONE HOUR PHOTO, BARBERSHOP, RED DRAGON, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, MINORITY REPORT, ROAD TO PERDITION, and also the awful horror sequels JASON X and HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION.
9. The New England Patriots' reign of terror begins.  Tom Brady and company knock off the HEAVILY favored St. Louis Rams with a 20-17 win and the first trophy for the franchise.  I watched this at a bar with my friend, and we both kind of chafed at U2 honoring the victims of 9/11 after previously bashing Americans with their political rhetoric.
10. Shaq and Kobe and the LA Lakers continue their dominance, sweeping the New Jersey Nets 4 games to 0 to complete their three-peat (watched this at my mom's house).  This probably should have been the year for the Sacramento Kings, who pushed the Lakers to 7 games in the Western Conference Championship.  It is said by some that the refs fixed at least game 6 in the Lakers' favor.
11. World Series: The Anaheim Angels (formerly California, now LA) beat Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants in 7 games.  I watched this at the same bar as the Super Bowl (Gator's), and was delighted that Barry Bonds lost-- he was quite the douchebag.
12. Stanley Cup: The Detroit Red Wings beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4 games to 1.  I don't remember even watching this.
13. This was the year my Bills' "Next Great Hope" quarterback was signed-- former Patriot Drew Bledsoe.  I always liked him (and he visits family around in my area) and he was pretty decent but not particularly mobile, with an often terrible offensive line in front of him.  We remained mediocre at best.
14. Lennox Lewis KOs former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson.  Mike's lack of trying to get up in the 8th was the epitome of "how the mighty have fallen".
15. TV debuts: THE OSBOURNES, THE SHIELD, THE BACHELOR, GEORGE LOPEZ, WHAMMY! THE ALL NEW PRESS YOUR LUCK, THE WIRE, CRANK YANKERS, AMERICAN IDOL, MONK, LIBERTY'S KIDS, WHAT'S NEW SCOOBY DOO, DR. PHIL, 8 SIMPLE RULES (FOR DATING MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER), TWILIGHT ZONE, FIREFLY, CSI: MIAMI, WITHOUT A TRACE.
16. The NBA's contract with NBC (and the great "Roundball Rock" theme by John Tesh) ends with the move to ABC.
Part 2 tomorrow..

[retrorussell]

17. Some commercials from the year 2002, including one for the games KINGDOM HEARTS and SUPER MARIO SUNSHINE which debuted this year.

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18. Notable sports rookies: YAO MING, NENE HILARIO, AMAR'E STOUDAMIRE, CARON BUTLER, CARLOS BOOZER (NBA), JULIUS PEPPERS, DWIGHT FREENEY, ALBERT HAYNESWORTH, JEREMY SHOCKEY, JAVON WALKER, ED REED, LITO SHEPPARD, LECHARLES BENTLEY, CLINTON PORTIS, MICHAEL LEWIS, BRIAN WESTBROOK (NFL)
19. Going back to Bledsoe, he had a great game against the Vikings in Minny.  I watched this either on the way to or back from a camping trip in central Oregon at a bar with my friend and one of his friends, and we met others at the campsite including my landlord-to-be.  Boy did I get wasted that first day.  Hell of a game for Bledsoe, throwing for 463 yards (still a Bills record) in a hell of a game period.

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20. Linkedin debuts.
21. The Euro currency is introduced.

22. Several food or toy industry founders/owners pass: Dave Thomas (Wendy's), Verne Winchell (Winchell's),  Ruth Handler (Barbie Doll/Mattel), William Rosenberg (Dunkin' Donuts), Alfred Heineken (president of Heineken Brewery).
23. The Houston Texans are introduced into the NFL, becoming the 32nd team.

24. The Charlotte Hornets move to New Orleans.  They soon suspend operations and a couple years later are re-named the Charlotte Bobcats.  That mostly dismal iteration of the franchise would return to Charlotte in 2014.
25. Some famous deaths: Richard Harris, Dudley Moore, James Coburn, Robert Urich, Billy Wilder, Rod Steiger, John Frankenheimer, Laurence Tierney, Jonathan Harris, Milton Berle, Rosemary Clooney, George Roy Hill, LaWanda Page, J. Lee Thompson, Raf Vallone.

I may go back and add stuff to years I've done already.

[retrorussell]

2004:
1. Finally got a job-- working at the same place my mom was working at!  A Nike golf warehouse with clubs, shirts, irons, hats, caddys, etc.  I worked 7AM-3:30PM, no overtime and made 9-ish an hour; much of the staff were Hispanic (some illegal) but most spoke at least a little English.  Some people who weren't in charge tried to get me to change the way I was doing things and that did not sit well with me.  I got hired around February and let off sometime in the summer (a big barbecue lunch would herald a lot of layoffs as cut employees would get a bobblehead golfer on their way out the door).  I found a couple jobs to keep me afloat later that year; one lasted 3 days (!) moving furniture and the other a small handful of months, moving/repairing warehouse furniture.  I got along well with most people on all those jobs; a couple sh*tbirds of course tried to make my life a living hell.
2. Drew Bledsoe was still with the Bills at this point, and we had a showdown with the team up north from me, the Seattle Seahawks.  At the (then) Qwest Field, my brothers and dad went to hopefully see at least some good plays from my team.  Holy crap did we kick the Seahawks' @$$es!  Willis McGahee was the star as he plowed through the Hawks for 4 TDs (!) and 116 yards.  I got a high-five from another Bills fan in the restroom, who said "Who said so??  Bledsoe!!".  Great fun.
3. Continuing on #2.. after an 0-4 start the Bills caught fire late in the season, winning 6 in a row (most games in blowout fashion)!  In order to make the postseason we had to beat Pittsburgh at home in the final game of the season and they played a lot of 3rd-stringers since their playoff spot was already determined.  But.. we failed.  That put us out of the playoffs for the 5th straight year and Drew would not return, being replaced with JP Losman (blech).
4. I returned towards the end of 2004 I believe to the Nike warehouse for a 2nd stint.  This time I stuck on for a couple more years.  I grew to really like this job-- I would be relied on to help out in many different departments-- inspection, assembly line, packing, loading, etc.  Also drove a forklift.  We would sometimes get sports celebrities walking through on a tour of the place, but I don't recall seeing any.  I think I still have some clubs/irons/balls from there.  My dad's friend put ads in the Oregonian newspaper and I'd help him after work sometimes for some extra cash for groceries.
5. MASSIVE earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean kills over 225,000 in several countries.  One of the deadliest natural disasters ever.
6. Facebook is launched (as THE FACEBOOK) as a social networking website for Harvard students.
7. Al-Qaeda bombs trains in Madrid, killing around 200.
8. The 2004 Summer Olympics are held in Athens, Greece.  Swimmer Michael Phelps wins 6 golds (8 medals overall) for the US.  Paula Radcliffe is expected to win gold in a marathon but sickness due to anti-inflammatory drugs for a leg injury forces her to drop out.  BIG SHOCKER: The USA Basketball Team loses badly in the opening game to Puerto Rico and goes on to win only the Bronze medal, despite having stars like Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Tim Duncan, Amar'e Stoudamire, Lamar Odom, and more.  Boo..
9. Chechen rebels take over 1,000 hostages at a school in Beslan, Russia; over 330 are killed.
10. George W. Bush is re-elected President of the United States.
11. Former guitarist of Pantera "Dimebag" Darrell is murdered onstage with his band in Columbus OH.
12. Tom Brady and the Patriots win their 2nd Super Bowl, this time over the surprising Carolina Panthers in their first SB.  This was definitely one of the more thrilling Super Bowls with an explosion of offense after very little in the 1st half.  Jake Delhomme went toe-to-toe with Tom Brady but the Pats pull it out by a 3 point margin (again).  I watched this at my friend's house, which was downstairs from his parents.  He invited his dad to watch it with us, which I wasn't thrilled with since his dad was in his 80s and I wanted to yell and scream-- I had to watch myself so I didn't have much fun.  Especially since the Pats won.
13. The NBA Finals however made me VERY happy-- the Lakers tried to build a super power team with Karl Malone and Gary Payton being signed to go with Shaq and Kobe.  Boy almighty did they suck it in the Finals against the Pistons, who (along with former Blazer Rasheed Wallace) win in 5 games for their 3rd title.  Also notable this playoffs was that Karl Malone would retire, the Timberwolves would reach their first Western Conference Finals, and the Memphis Grizzlies made their first playoffs for the city of Memphis (previously Vancouver, Canada).
14. WORLD SERIES: Ha ha ha.. Boston's postseason woes of the past seemed to leave a pall over this season as well.. the Yankees got up THREE GAMES TO NONE.  I repeat: THREE GAMES TO NONE.  Over the Red Sox in the AL Championship series.  When unbelievably, the Sox won the NEXT FOUR GAMES to go to the World Series.  Truly awesome-- being a Blue Jays fan I really hate the Yankees.  The Sox then sweep the St. Louis Cardinals for their first World Series title since 1918.
15. The Colts' Peyton Manning sets the NFL record for most TDs thrown in a season at 49 (breaking Dan Marino's record of 48; Tom Brady would throw for a record 50 in 2007).
16. Ichiro Suzuki of the Mariners sets the record for most hits and singles in a season.
17. Mike Tyson in a comeback attempt is KO'ed by Danny Williams in Louisville, Kentucky.  Tyson received ligament damage in one of knees early in the fight, contributing to the loss.
18. Stanley Cup: The Tampa Bay Lightning win their first Stanley Cup in 7 games over the Calgary Flames.
19. NHL Lockout: The NHL season is cancelled in September, meaning no Stanley Cup in 2005.

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20. Top movies: THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, THE AVIATOR, SHREK 2, MILLION DOLLAR BABY, SIDEWAYS, RAY, FINDING NEVERLAND, HIDALGO, DAWN OF THE DEAD, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, HELLBOY, WALKING TALL, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, KILL BILL VOL. 2, SUPERSIZE ME, TROY, HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, FAHRENHEIT 9/11, THE NOTEBOOK, SPIDER MAN 2, ANCHORMAN, BOURNE SUPREMACY, MISTER 3,000, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, SHALL WE DANCE, THE GRUDGE, SAW, THE INCREDIBLES, POLAR EXPRESS, SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: THE MOVIE, THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU.
21. TV debuts: LOST, HOUSE, ENTOURAGE, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, DEADWOOD, VERONICA MARS, CSI: NY, BOSTON LEGAL, DANNY PHANTOM, THE APPRENTICE, GHOST HUNTERS, THE BIGGEST LOSER, DOG WHISPERER, RAMSEY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES, and DRAWN TOGETHER (pretty twisted but hilarious cartoon).
22. Some popular songs I remember: DROP IT LIKE IT'S HOT, AMERICAN IDIOT, SUNSHINE, REDNECK WOMAN, MY BOO, 1985, TAKE YOUR MAMA.
23. Some famous deaths: Uta Hagen, Ann Miller, Mercedes McCambridge, Paul Winfield, Peter Ustinov, Carrie Snodgress, Estee Lauder, Tony Randall, Ronald Reagan, Ray Charles, Marlon Brando, Isabel Sanford, Jerry Goldsmith, Rick James, Fay Wray, Julia Child, Elmer Bernstein, Laura Branigan, Johnny Ramone, Russ Meyer, Janet Leigh, Rodney Dangerfield, Christopher Reeve, Yasser Arafat, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Jerry Orbach, Artie Shaw.
24. Various debuts: Vimeo, The Angry Video Game Nerd, FreeBASIC, GMail, Ritz Chips
25. 2004 commercials:

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[retrorussell]

2005:
1. Finally jumped on the Playstation 2 bandwagon-- I liked Soul Edge for the Playstation 1 and saw that Soul Calibur III was available for PS2.  Also, I had heard that it played Playstation 1 games as well!  I had saved a bit of coin from both jobs-- the Nike warehouse job and the Oregonian job-- to get one.  Man oh man was I blown away!  No wonder it's the best selling console of all time (not counting the Nintendo Switch).  Had this hooked up to the tv in the guest bedroom.  I remember I had a pull-out futon bed/couch in that room.
2. Also bought the brand new RESIDENT EVIL 4.  Love love love this game!  Best game in the series.  So deep, so many weapons, so many side quests, and so many tense moments.  The only downside is the whiny damsel-in-distress Ashley.
3. Oh boy-- Hurricane Katrina is one of the most deadly and destructive US hurricanes in recent memory.  Over 1,800 die and it causes $125 billion in damage.  Southeastern US and Mexico are hit hard but the area around New Orleans takes the biggest hit.  Mass flooding around the city caused the most casualties.  Sports teams playing in the city had to be moved to different locations for home games.
4. I remember all the buzz surrounding Eagles QB Donovan McNabb and his admittedly funny Chunky Soup commercials (I loved the one where his mom makes a block to spring her son for a TD).  He got  his team to their first Super Bowl since 1981-- but they got JUST short of a first title as Tom Brady and the Patriots win a 3rd championship.  Apparently star receiver Terrell Owens was not happy with McNabb's performance and was not shy about telling him.  They would go on to have a long-standing feud and led to Terrell being suspended and later waived.
5. Not to be outdone by the Red Sox winning their first title in over 80 years, the Chicago White Sox take their first title since 1917!  I remember Steve Perry from the band Journey singing with the White Sox players who adopted his song "Don't Stop Believin'" as their team anthem.  It was very cool!  The White Sox sweep the Houston Astros 4-0.
6. The term "sexting" gains steam.  I don't think I've ever used it.
7. Moustapha Akkad, long-time producer of the Halloween films, is killed by bombings in Amman, Jordan, along with his daughter.
8. Other deaths: Will Eisner, Hal Seeger, Amrish Puri, Virginia Mayo, Johnny Carson, Max Schmeling, Ossie Davis, Arthur Miller, Dan O' Herlihy, Sandra Dee, Hunter S. Thompson, Teresa Wright, Mitch Hedberg, Pope John Paul II, Rainier III Prince of Monaco, John Mills, Frank Gorshin, Howard Morris, Ismail Merchant, Eddie Albert, George Mikan, Anne Bancroft, Luther Vandross, Long John Baldry, James Doohan, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Peter Jennings, Robert Wise, Don Adams, Nipsey Russell, Rosa Parks, Link Wray, Eddie Guerrero, Pat Morita, Richard Pryor.
9. The Detroit Pistons nearly get their 4th championship but come up one game short to the San Antonio Spurs, who win their 3rd title in 7 games.  Scoring was woefully low in the 2000's!
10. As alluded to in my 2004 recap, there was NO STANLEY CUP championship!
11. FAMILY GUY makes a return to tv after being canceled 3 years ago. 
12. Tv debuts: AMERICAN DAD!, THE BOONDOCKS, BEN10, AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER, BONES, CASH CAB, THE CLOSER, THE COLBERT REPORT, THE DEADLIEST CATCH, DEAL OR NO DEAL, EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS, THE GHOST WHISPERER, GREY'S ANATOMY, HELL'S KITCHEN, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, IRON CHEF AMERICA, IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA, THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON, MARTHA STEWART SHOW, MY NAME IS EARL, NUMB3RS, THE OFFICE, PRISON BREAK, ROBOT CHICKEN, SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, SQUIDBILLIES, STELLA, THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER, WEEDS, LUCY THE DAUGHTER OF THE DEVIL.
13. Top movies: STAR WARS III: REVENGE OF THE SITH (I rather liked this one), KING KONG, WALK THE LINE, BATMAN BEGINS, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, JARHEAD, SIN CITY, 40-YEAR OLD VIRGIN, HOSTEL, THE CORPSE BRIDE, WEDDING CRASHERS, WOLF CREEK, THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, DOMINION: THE PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST
14. Some okay songs: BEVERLY HILLS- Weezer, SUGAR WE'RE GOIN' DOWN-Fall Out Boy, BEST OF YOU-Foo Fighters
More later..

[retrorussell]

15. George W. Bush officially begins his 2nd term as US President.
16. YouTube debuts.  Me At The Zoo is its first video.

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17. The Kyoto Protocol is enacted.
18. A major earthquake hits Sumatra, killing around 1,000.
19. Prince Charles marries Camilla Parker Bowles at Windsor's Guildhall.
20. Syria ends its military occupation of Lebanon after 29 years.
21. Almost 1,000 Shia Muslim pilgrims are stampeded to death in Baghdad during a religious festival.
22. Muslim riots occur around the world in response to an illustration of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.
23. Pakistan is hit by a massive earthquake, which kills over 86,000.
24. Debuts: Burger King Chicken Fries, Coca Cola with Lime, Hershey's Kissables, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, and XBOX 360.

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25. The Washington Nationals debut after 35 years of existence as the Montreal Expos.

[retrorussell]

2006:
1. New job!  My brother had a job driving a truck for a beverage warehouse way out in an industrial area in the Columbia River area called Swan Island.  I applied there and was delighted to see that a Fryer Tuck's Chicken was out there (great chicken and spuds), but that was gone shortly after I got hired. :(  Brutal job where the early orders to complete weren't so difficult-- I ran an electric pallet jack and loaded it with orders, then shrink wrapped it and loaded it onto a trucks.  It was the late order that was several pages long and the likelihood that you would finish it on time was minimal.  If you thought you could take all your breaks and lunch, GUESS AGAIN.  You were WAY too busy.  Just throw some snacks on your pallet jack's basket with your order and fly.  You were so exhausted and if you spilled over your order, you would want to break down and cry.  So rough.  In additional, there is no bus service when you get off work (somewhere between 1-3 AM usually) so if I was walking home it's 8 miles or so.  I had to do this a few times.  Fortunately I could usually catch a lift with a guy that lived in Hillsboro so I was kind of on his way.  Absolutely rough job.  The typical "the harder you work, the more you get to do someone else's job" workplace.  Winters along the Columbia got really cold but I worked so fast and hard that I often wore a t-shirt and wasn't cold.
2. Pluto is officially declared a "dwarf planet".
3. Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for crimes against humanity.  He is hung at the end of the year.
4. An earthquake in Java, Indonesia kills over 5,700.
5. Social media platform Twitter is launched.
6. The Nintendo Wii is released.

7. A mosque bombing in Iraq sets the Iraq Civil War into motion.
8. A massive mudslide in the Philippines kills 1,126.
9. Over 1,000 die when an Egyptian ferry sinks in the Red Sea.
10. A stampede at the "Stoning of the Devil" ritual in Mina, Saudi Arabia kills at least 362.
11. Turin, Italy hosts the 2006 Winter Olympics.  Germany tops the golds and overall medals list.
12. SUPER BOWL XL: Ugh.  I was happy to see the Seattle Seahawks make their first Super Bowl.  Pittsburgh has always been a team I never cared much for.  The refs were TERRIBLE this game, and even though the final score was 21-10 Pittsburgh, there were some blatantly bad calls that could have shifted the odds dramatically in Seattle's favor if they were the right ones.  Watched this one at my friend's house downstairs, where my profanity wouldn't disturb his folks upstairs.
13. Drew Brees ditches the San Diego Chargers and signs with the New Orleans Saints.  One of the greatest free agency signings ever!
14. The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers 4 games to 1 in the World Series to become the franchise with the 2nd most World Series Championships (behind, of course, the Yankees).
15. Kobe Bryant goes full-on nutso and tallies the 2nd highest point total for a single player in a game with 81 points over the Raptors on January 22.  Wilt Chamberlain remains at #1 with 100 points even.
16. I was really rooting for the Dallas Mavericks, who with the great Dirk Nowitzki reached their first NBA Finals (as did the East champion Miami Heat).  And they got off to a great start, winning the first 2 games.  After that, though.. Dwyane Wade torched them four straight games and gave the Miami Heat their first title.  I remember Shaquille O'Neal and Gary Payton also being on the team, along with great signings Jason Williams and Antoine Walker.
17. Wladimir Klitschko wins the heavyweight boxing title.  I loved his pose with him shaving with an axe:

18. TV debuts: AMERICA'S GOT TALENT, METALOCALPYSE,
(this first episode scene cracked me up)

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CURIOUS GEORGE, BLEACH, NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL, RACHAEL RAY, HAPPY TREE FRIENDS, UGLY BETTY, DEXTER,

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 30 ROCK, FRISKY DINGO.
19. MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL makes a historical move from ABC to ESPN.
20. Big movies: THE DEPARTED, BORAT, LITLLE MISS SUNSHINE, DREAMGIRLS, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, THE DA VINCI CODE, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III, CARS, HAPPY FEET, CASINO ROYALE and a movie I barely was able to sit through because of a retarded kid in front of me HOWLING whenever the soundtrack kicked in: SUPERMAN RETURNS
21. Disney purchases Pixar.
22. The University of Florida wins their first NCAA Men's Basketball championship over UCLA.  Center Joakim Noah wins Most Outstanding Player award.
23. The Carolina Hurricanes win their first Stanley Cup, one year after the NHL lockout prevented a Stanley Cup championship.  They beat the Edmonton Oilers in 7 games.
24. Daniel Craig becomes the new James Bond.
25. The Playstation 3 is released.

[ER]

Memories of 1988: When You’re Young, Life Seems Huge

1.   I was in third grade the first half of ’88, and one of our substitute teachers grew up in western Pennsylvania, near PBS’ Mister Rogers, and told us his family bought a picnic table from her family. That fall I was in 4th grade and had my favorite teacher ever, the aforementioned “Ssster” who was a trip and a half.

2.   One of my friends in Burlington, Kentucky, where we had lived for two years and would live for another year, had a live-in grandma, who had a blue-milk cataract covering one of her eyes, and she mostly seemed to sit in this chair watching TV with two hairy gray cats in her lab, and I remember her robe would be covered in cat hair. She was a nice lady who smiled at us, but, unfairly I know, her circumstance and age kind of put us off as kids, and we’d sometimes say hi to her and run past as fast as we could.


3.   My thirteen year old cousin Alison got in trouble with her dad for stealing money from him to buy cocaine. She’d started using at about age nine or ten, and it was a scandal in the family. I liked Alison but was also put off by her ways, and would only years later learn how sad and difficult her life was, a pitiful little rich girl, basically, abused and addicted. I learned from her that money isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. (No pun there.)

4.   We had a drought all summer, and a heat wave, it basically did not rain for months. Creeks went dry, leaving the exposed stones bleached white by the sun, and the river went so low it stranded barges. Farmers from down south formed a miles-long caravan and out of their own pockets drove up hay to donate to local farmers, whose fields were withered by the conditions. Although I lived in Kentucky, I remember late in the year Sssster told us in science that 1988 was the first year (ever?) that Ohio had not even one tornado.


5.   When I went to visit my maternal family that year, my mom’s youngest sibling, Aunt Sarah, who was twelve and a half, basically gave me her old bike when she got a new one, and we spent many pleasant days riding all over town, and that made it probably my best summer visit to Ireland ever.

6.   Because I was spending the weekend with my paternal grandparents, who lived nearby, we went to the grand opening of the biggest and most posh mall in the city. That mall is actually still thriving, but many others from 1988 are gone now. Anyway, some radio station was handing out gift bags to the first however many kids through the door, and I got one of the last ones. Among other things it had a pass to the mall’s movie theater in it, which I used to see Beetlejuice.


7.   Stephanie, a girl I liked in school, had a new baby brother named Jordan, and we went in to see him at her house, and Stephanie---cringe-worthy---put her finger on Jordan’s soft spot and kind of rubbed on it while she explained how babies’ skulls aren’t hard there. Jordan didn’t cry but it couldn’t have felt good to have someone pressing on his head like that. I sometimes wonder if Stephanie altered the poor kid’s brain structure and today he’s a Scientologist or something else weird.

8.   That was the Christmas my grandma gave me a blank diary, and set the next third of a century and counting into motion as the macro and micro of my life was recorded. For example, this list will probably go into tonight’s entry. ;-)


9.   The local NFL team went 12-4 in the regular season and success-starved fans went insane. They’d go to the Super Bowl and almost win, and during the season one of the players, Icky Woods, did this odd in-zone dance called the Icky Shuffle, and it became an embarrassing fad in town to imitate that, Ssster used to do it for us as a reward, but thankfully the Icky Shuffle didn’t last. Nor did Icky himself.

10.   Pete Rose, who was managing the Reds by then, got chucked out of a game for shoving an umpire who tapped him in the face during a heated argument. It was the first incident in the trail that would eventually lead to Rose’s fall from glory and banishment from baseball (for gambling) in about a year.


11.   A filly won the Kentucky Derby for only the third time ever. Her name was Winning Colors, and though I knew almost nothing about horse racing, I liked it a little better because of her victory and even named my bike Winning Colors. This was the same year my grandparents drove me and my cousin to Claiborne Farms, in Paris, Kentucky, and my grandpa got them to let us see Secretariat in his paddock. He was a big beautiful red horse, still muscled and obviously proud of himself, gazing confidently back at us over top of the farm’s black fences, and a worker there told us, “He’s a king.”

12.   I saw a man almost choke to death in a Big Boy restaurant. Someone Heimliched him and the man said thank you, sat back down and finished his food. My friend’s mom had taken my friend and my friend’s sister and me there while we were hanging out, and she said, “The man could have at least offered to pay for the other guy’s meal, since he saved his life.” Yeah, really.


13.   I got a hair crimper for my tenth birthday that year and…overused it.

14.   My dad was in West Berlin for fourteen weeks early that year, and another time for nine weeks later in the year, but at least he stayed in touch with us. He brought me back cool stuff, newspapers in German, a bottle of the city’s water, which tasted sort of minerally, and little souvenir type things, and dirt from just outside the Wall. I asked if I could go with him to the city when he went back, but of course I couldn’t.


15.   This teenage boy down the road tried to look like Bon Jovi, complete with an out of control mullet, he’d blare the Slippery When Wet tape when he’d peel out of his parents’ driveway in his loud ‘70s-vintage Trans-Am, and while we should have respected his efforts to be who he wanted to be, all the kids on the street made fun of him for it, including me, so he’d smirk and slink to his car when he saw we were out. I feel bad about that now, especially since he was such a dweeb and imitation was probably all he had.

16.   This is beyond gross, but this girl told me if I’d finish off the half-full jar of tartar sauce in her fridge, she’d give me seven dollars, so I did, and she kept her word and gave me the money. I still hate that stuff to this day. Um, not money.


17.   When I went to get my teeth cleaned and have a checkup at the dentist, Dana, my cousin, begged me to please scream and moan a lot, to scare the other kids in the waiting room, like she did when she went in to her own dentist. I wish I had been gutsy enough to do that, though I’m not 100% sure she really did actually do that herself.

18.   Speaking of Dana, she got a Moped that summer, because back then you could ride them on certain 25 MPH residential streets at age fourteen, like she was. Well, she was coming home and hit a pothole and flew head-first over the handle bars going about thirty miles an hour, and landed on her back, and the Moped even kind of hit her. She laid there a second, the wind knocked out of her, then got up, somehow, to her shock, totally unhurt, and rode it the rest of the way home. I would think she was exaggerating the whole incident except too many people saw it. But that was the end of her Moped-ing days, since my aunt freaked out and sold it.


19.   It was the city’s bicentennial, 1788-1988, and celebrations went on all year, always something big and fun going on, but maybe the coolest was this event called Tall Stacks, in which the biggest gathering of steam-powered riverboats and old paddle wheelers and such, came together at the public landing, and the river for half a mile was wall to wall Mark Twain-era steamboats, and at noon on a Saturday they all blew their horns at once, and it was said that was heard for twenty miles. I held my ears, ha.

20.   My dad had a Macintosh SE, and he mostly wouldn’t let me be on it too much, it was seriously expensive, but he did have this Broderbund game he played called The Ancient Art of War, in which you could battle famous generals from history like Genghis Khan and Napoleon and Julius Caesar, and of course Sun Tzu. He was surprised when after letting me mess around with the game, I was pretty good at it, and beat every general on there except Sun Tzu, who was basically invincible.


21.   In many ways I had a sheltered childhood, unlike so many others, especially nowadays, but I almost had that innocence shattered one time spending the night with Dana, who thought it’d be funny to subject me to this Ken Russell flick called Gothic (which I later actually liked), but at the last second her brother, Jared, ratted her out and her mom put a stop to her nefarious intentions to show me a movie filled with lurid behavior, peaking with Julian Sands’ bare ass, and culminating in Claire Clairmont's nipples turning into eyes. Narrow miss that!

22.   I think my mom must’ve gotten some sort of package deal on symphony tickets, because I remember we went to the symphony all the time in 1988. Seriously, I bet twenty performances. I was blasé on that, liking the setting, this 1870s massive Gothic hall, more than having to sit quietly for music that was often very good but just as often tedious. I remember the Spanish conductor’s name was Jesus, and when I told this fact to my Irish grandmother, she gave me a lecture on how people who named their kids after the Lord were blasphemers who would at best stay in Purgatory til the end of time. Rough God up there….


23.   I don’t know if the drought had anything to do with it but in the summer of 1988 I saw more lightning bugs than ever in my life. They seemed thick in the air, as they have never been since, and I recall sitting one night on my deck and unfocusing my eyes and the blinking of hundreds of fireflies began to look like the fairy dust sequence in Disney movies, like the entire world became this magical place for a little while.

24.   This neighborhood wild boy I hung out with named Tarzan tried to jump his handed-down 1970s looking banana-seated, mismatching parts Frankenbike, Black Angel, over a freezer his dad was throwing away. He pushed and hauled the freezer into the street (not much car traffic) and put a ramp up on barrels and rode way far back then peddled like maniac, and kerplopped face-first straight into the freezer when the ramp collapsed. He rolled and got up and immediately fixed the ramp “better” and credit to the boy’s guts, he made it on the second try, blood running down his skinned elbows. He was the bravest little s**t in town.


25.   My grandpa went elk hunting in North Dakota, which I thought was totally mean, and while out there he was invited onto tribal land and met some people trying to get a casino set up. I don’t know the whole story and never will, but apparently he stayed in a tiny motel near where he hunted, and heard a pitch to invest in the planned casino, but he said he thought the tribe there was in bed with the Chicago mob, so he said no. Turned out the casino was totally legit, it was the beginning of “Indian  casinos” and in later years he’d say he would have seen a hundredfold return on what they were asking him to invest. Sheesh….

And that was 1988….

[retrorussell]

2007:
1. The iPhone is unveiled.
2. A goofy bomb scare occurs in Boston when LED signs with the Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force on them are somehow mistaken for explosives.
3. A Bangladesh cyclone kills around 15,000.
4. I remember my Bills taking QB Trent Edwards in the 3rd round this year.  After JP Losman got hurt Edwards would take over.  He had some decent games but would be known for checking down rather than airing it out, and an injury the following year would basically seal his fate. 
5. Also Bills: This was the year of a handful of bad memories: One of the bigger heartbreaks in the team's MNF history (a late-game meltdown vs. Tony Romo & the Cowboys), the worst home loss in team history (a ridiculous 56-10 kerstomping courtesy of the Patriots), a disgusting loss at home to the Giants (leading 14-0 and then getting outscored 38-7) and a complete slogfest in heavy snow to the Browns, losing 8-0.  However, I did enjoy Super Bowl-winning coach Joe Gibbs screw up this game with a 2nd consecutive time out to "ice" Rian Lindell (a penalty):

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This came not long after Redskins safety Sean Taylor was murdered.
6. I remember this being the year I discovered that a place near me did karaoke on odd days of the week, so on a couple of my days off (I got 3 days off-- Sunday being an "on call" day which I'd often have to work and I was the only dummy to actually call in) I'd go over there-- a Chinese restaurant that's still around.  I had one hell of a voice back then; now that the pandemic is mostly in the rearview mirror, and I've recovered from my own Covid bout, I'm trying to get back to where I used to be.  Not easy when I have to wear a mask at work all day.
7. 500-some die in a massive earthquake in Peru.
8. Bombings kill over 500 in northern Iraq; 200 more in Baghdad.
9. North Korea agrees to shut down some of its nuclear facilities.
10. SUPER BOWL XLI: Peyton Manning (then with the Indianapolis Colts) gets his first Super Bowl ring with a 29-17 win over the Chicago Bears.  My brother and dad are Bears fans and I remember wanting them to lose-- not to rub it in their face but because Rex Grossman wasn't a very good QB and they basically made it to the SB on their defense and return game.  Great start for them with Devin Hester returning the opening kick for paydirt, but then Peyton started doing Peyton things, like win the MVP.  Halftime show: Prince, with the Florida A&M Marching Band; National Anthem: Billy Joel.
11. The Patriots would become only the 2nd NFL team in the Super Bowl era to go undefeated during the regular season (after the Dolphins).  They would not, however, win the Super Bowl in a shocking loss to the Giants.
12. I was tickled pink to see the Dolphins only win one game this year.  However, they had a dramatic turnaround the following year.. boo!
13. Barry Bonds passes Hank Aaron to become the all-time home run leader.  This record is tainted by Bonds' use of PEDs.
14. The Colorado Rockies make their first World Series!  However, they get swept by the Red Sox.
15. LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers make their NBA Finals debuts.  They are swept by Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, etc. and the San Antonio Spurs 4-0, with Parker winning MVP.
16. The Anaheim Ducks (formerly Mighty Ducks of Anaheim) win their first and to date only Stanley Cup, over the Ottawa Senators, in 5 games.  Former New Jersey Devil Scott Niedermeyer wins Playoff MVP.
17. Actor Isaiah Washington is fired from the show Grey's Anatomy for calling a male co-star a gay slur.
18. Former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith dies of prescription drug overdose.
19. Bob Barker retires as host of The Price Is Right; comedian/actor Drew Carey replaces him.
20. Massive wildfires hit the Malibu area, forcing some Hollywood stars to evacuate.
21. Some top movies: SUPERBAD, (ROB ZOMBIE'S) HALLOWEEN, JUNO, SWEENEY TODD, TRANSFORMERS, SPIDER MAN 3, 28 WEEKS LATER, THE MIST, SHREK THE THIRD, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END.
22. TV debuts: THE BIG BANG THEORY, MAD MEN, CALIFORNICATION, BURN NOTICE, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, PHINEAS AND FERB, PRIVATE PRACTICE, TIM AND ERIC, KITCHEN NIGHTMARES, TOTAL DRAMA, SARAH JANE ADVENTURES, ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER?.
23. The Cinema Snob (Brad Jones) debuts on YouTube with film reviews.  He kind of reminds me of a former renter/friend.  Talks the same, has the same kind of pessimistic view about certain things.
24. Notable songs: LOW, BEFORE HE CHEATS (yuck-- too many people karaoke this), HEY THERE DELILAH, FERGALICIOUS, CHASING CARS.
25. Product debuts: Amazon Kindle, AppleTV, Coca Cola Orange, Logitech Driving Force GT, Pepsi Zero Sugar, Reese's Whipps.

[ER]

Memories of 1987: When You’re Young Time Seems So Slow

1.   Eight was a pretty good year, because when you’re that age you are not the innocent you were but you’re in this high childhood state that still holds magic and wonder, yet you can do so much more, and you’re learning new things daily. (I used to read encyclopedias in bed each night and there was this whole entire world of things about which to learn.) It was wonderful to be eight.

2.   Don’t ask me why but it made total sense to a bunch of us neighborhood girls to form what was probably the world’s only Will Shriner Fan Club, named in honor of this syndicated talk show host we got together and watched every day at 9:00 AM that summer. That was about all there was to the WSFC, no secret handshake or conventions, but til school started and pushed it from our minds, it was our thing.

3.   Also that summer the seventeen-year Brood X cicadas erupted from the ground in their hordes, wobbling through the air less dexterous than bumblebees, and collecting on branches til whole trees were covered in them. There was a restaurant chain in town in those days called Snappy Tomato Pizza that had a jingle that got changed in parody to “Snappy Cicada Pizza.” I always like the cicada swarms but I seem to be in the minority.


4.   There was this barge filled with trash from NYC that apparently, as I remember, could not find anyone willing to let it land and dump its piled-on contents, so this barge cruised up and down the east coast looking for refuge for the refuse, which grew more and more noisome. Finally entrepreneurs sold trash from the “Garbage Barge” and I wanted a piece. My dad looked at me when I asked and said, “You want to pay for a piece of garbage, El?” Then he paid me to pick it up outside; better deal.

5.   I’ll tell you what freaked me out that year was little Jessica McClure falling down a well in Texas. If I thought about her situation, which of course being me I did to excess, I started feeling like I couldn’t breathe. It was horror! But, you know, happy ending.

6.   Iran-Contra hearings were shown live on eve-ry TV channel, canceling out my shows. I remember my dad and my grandpa, who, sadly, never were on good terms (my dad used to get my mom to take me over there when his dad was home) were on opposite poles about charismatic right-wing superstar Oliver North, with my dad saying he belonged in prison, and my grandpa, who by then had evolved into that strange creature known as a Reagan Democrat, dubbing him a hero. It felt like those hearings went on and on and on that summer, but like I said, when you’re young time moves slowly, and a summer can last as long as a year seems to when you’re middle-aged.

7.   That fall I would make it home just when Duck Tales started airing, running in the door as that theme song started playing. I loved that half-hour commercial show.

8.   That Halloween I went trick or treating three times! Once at the local mall off I-75, which did a “mall-or-treat” the weekend before Halloween (GNC gave out frickin’ sunflower seeds though, blah! Only took them to be polite), once at my cousin’s neighborhood, which had afternoon trick or treating, and then she and I came back to my own neighborhood for the regular evening trick or treating as the furtive gods of darkness intended. I’d never had so much candy in my entire life, yet in a weepy post-script, my mother, being Irish Catholic, guilt-tripped me into donating half my haul to the “poor kids” at the St. Vincent de Paul Society, where I bet the clerks just ate it themselves.

9.   On one of the last times I remember going to a drive-in, we saw The Lost Boys, which I didn’t care much for then but in my teens I enjoyed it. It was in a double feature with Conan the Barbarian, which I thought was possibly the coolest use of Arnold I’d ever seen. I went around for weeks telling people what was best in life.

10.   Tarzan down the street somehow got ahold of his brother’s box of Ultimate ‘80s Boy Accessories, including Chinese throwing stars, a butterfly knife, and a survival knife like Rambo had. He asked if I wanted to go back to “the pond” as this swampy ditch in the woods was called, so I did and he tried to throw the Chinese stars into trees, but they’d just bounce off, and he found some poor worm and diced it with the butterfly knife, and then unpacked everything in the handle of the survival knife and laid it out, fishing line and hooks and adhesive bandages and weird little things he couldn’t get to fit back inside. We were still having a blast when Tarzan’s brother Steve came looking for him for taking his stuff and literally threw him into the pond, where Tarzan came up muddy and soaking but the thing was, his brother was probably fifteen, Tarzan was about eight, but Tarzan charged up from the water wind-milling his fists and actually fought his brother to a draw, right in front of me. That family was something, I’ll tell you. My mom never understood what made me want to hang out over there but they were all so nuts I never knew what was coming next.

11.   The principal at my school was universally feared, being this scowling old man who’d started teaching circa 1935, and who never ever smiled, and who seemed to have a peculiarly twisted delight in paddling kids. Anyway, one day this boy I knew from class got sent by our teacher to the gym to take down some soup labels in the drive for new equipment we were part of, and this boy came back upstairs at the same time another class taking gym dismissed, so he was walking beside the class, minding his own business, when the principal who was standing at the top of the stairs saw him and said, “You’re walking out of line.” And he hit the boy HARD with his paddle, but because the boy flinched, the principal ended up hitting him across the lower back, doing real damage. Maybe in the past the principal would’ve gotten away with that, but it was such a big deal he suddenly “retired” and a much nicer principal came in, thank goodness.

12.   My neighbor had a cat named Gilligan who would run into our house if you gave him half a chance. He’d even hide in our yew bushes and rush in while one of us walked out. He wasn’t mean but he seemed neurotic, and once he was in the house it was hard to get him to leave. He’d immediately flee under furniture and if you tried to get him out from under there, he’d take off running anyplace he could, even leaping atop our entertainment center and bookcases. He never hissed or bit or scratched, but trying to pick him up to get him out was like trying to scoop jello with a toothpick. My dad always said he thought somebody must’ve dropped Gilligan on his head when he was a kitten.

13.   We had a membership at the Tri-City YMCA, where my dad would go work out sometimes and play ball and I’d go swim and, you know, just do stuff. There was this strange knockoff of the Brownies that met there called Indian Princesses, and one evening I watched them making leather coin purses and thought I’d like to join. “Indian Princesses is sort of a wussy name, don’t you think?” my dad said when I told him in the car. And it kinda was, yeah, I mean Indian Girl Assassins would’ve been much better, but still I wanted in, so even though it was the middle of the year they let me join. I only wanted to make a leather coin purse though, not do all the other stuff, like sell popcorn door to door and pledge on my “Tribal Honor” to the always walk the Indian Path, so I think I lasted all of three meetings, which made our Teepee Mother, Mrs. Waldenheim,  write me a card to say she was very disappointed in me since I didn’t strike her as a quitter. I felt terrible about that til my mom said, “Watch.” Then she stuck a wad of chewing gum on the Teepee Mother’s passive-aggro card and threw it away, and then it just seemed funny. (Never did get to make a leather coin purse though…)

14.   That year the geeky teen neighbor who would be so into Bon Jovi in ’88 was into Van Hagar (as he called Van Halen), and would BLAST the 5150 tape EVERY time he was outside lifting his weights in the driveway or washing his rattle-trap Trans-Am. But to this day when I hear that song Why Can’t This Be Love, I can still remember that desperate-to-be-cool teenager singing it.

15.   I got my first tennis racquet that fall, and when Jimi Hendrix handled his first guitar I wonder if he got the feeling I did, that this perfect extension of my hand had just been activated via the instrument of my destiny and almost my doom. I discovered I loved playing tennis, and if it’s not too immodest to say, I found I had a natural talent for the sport, getting better with practice, yes, but right off the bat having some undeserved innate ability that took off instantly. Even from my early days I would go onto a court against someone, and usually---sorry, truth---win. Yet it was just a fun thing to do for a while and not for years would I get serious about it like I did in middle school and the first two grades of high school. Eventually of course it nearly killed me, and a few months later I discovered I was also a sexual prodigy and quit playing tennis so much in order to devote my free time to that pursuit. But that’s a bit down the road from 1987.

16.   I don’t think my tastes in music were particularly sophisticated, I liked Cyndi Lauper and The Bangles and bubblegum pop, but I did come to discover this Peter Gabriel song called Solsbury Hill that was old for me and would play it over and over on this little tape recorder I kept on the basket of my bike. Thing was, I wouldn’t play it when I was home or with others, it was like it was my secret song, and I’ve noticed I’ve had a lot of those over the years, songs I don’t tell other people about, that I only play when I am alone. I’m not sure if others have their own songs like that but that was probably my first.

17.   In gym the teacher, a pretty all right guy, showed us this film about stranger danger, and it was the most lurid, terrifying, trauma-including piece of twenty-minute cinema third-grade me had ever seen. These two girls my age were playing on a playground while this strange man, shown in first-person perspective, just a camera, made nice to them and gave them chips and candy, then said he knew their families and offered to drive them home in his van, then it was implied he did “bad stuff” to them because all we were shown was a black screen while the girls shrieked and begged for about a minute straight, and one screamed til her scream cut off all at once and the screen sat there on black for maybe ten more seconds til it flashed forward to police looking for the missing girls by flashlight, and they found their bodies floating in a lake. It was way too much for little kids, totally out of the usual “life is happy” ‘80s childhood style PSAs, and it rattled my brain for the longest time. In fact when I was briefly mad at the world in 1995, I used to go walking alone at night by this highway daring something to happen to me, and even so many years later I found myself thinking of that creepy film.

18.   My parents got new cars that year, the first “new” new cars we’d had, and despite the fact you can buy it as a fragrance, I hated that new car smell. It was also a feature in those models that the seatbelts would descend automatically to go over you, with the result that at my height I was half-strangled with every drive.

19.   Late in the year my dad got one of the biggest books I’d ever seen, this totally massive novel called Sarum, that had Stonehenge on the cover, and he told me it was about the Salisbury Plain region of England over the last 10,000 years, which blew my mind, me never guessing a book could have that much scope. He read big parts of Sarum to me out loud, and later when I was about twelve I read it myself over the course of several months. It’s still among my all-time favorite novels.

20.   That September slick California New Age guru Dick Sutphen came to town in Motley Crue’s tour bus, with his hypnotic regression therapy road show. When Dana said she was going, she being all of thirteen, I desperately wanted to as well, since the idea of seeing the historical past, as regression promised, thrilled me. I wasn’t allowed but Dana did buy me one of Sutphen’s books called You Were Born Again To Be Together, in retrospect cheesy and obviously fake, but that marked the start of my twenty-year-long interest in reincarnation. On a number of occasions that fall Dana and I would lie quietly in her darkened room and listen to Sutphen’s regression tapes as he supposedly guided us into our pre-birth pasts, and at the end we’d tell one another the impressions we saw: an ice age cave and a Greek island and a dark-skinned woman with dreads pounding purple roots in a stone bowl. I had to hide the fact we were doing that from my mom, who wouldn’t have liked it. In fact living where I did when I did and going to the school I did, there wasn’t anyone at home to talk to about things like past lives, and my interests were not those of your typical eight year old. Or typical at any age, really.

21.   Star Trek the Next Generation premiered, and we never missed it. Friday the 13th the Series came on next to it, and was pretty good too. And on Saturday evenings a local CBS affiliate aired Tales from the Dark Side, which had this great opening sequence (“….a DARK side…”). There was also a FOX series called Werewolf that was corny but fun, so if you liked sci-fi and horror, TV wasn’t bad in 1987.

22.   My dad was on a YMCA basketball team, the last year he actively played before he started coaching this inner city team, and he was a good player. He had been on a team in high school that only lost two games all season and won by an average of over twenty points per game, but the two times they lost were to the same team that itself went unbeaten, so my dad’s phenomenal squad never went into post-season play, something that still bugs him almost half a century later. Anyway, one night at one of his YMCA games this scantily-dressed woman abruptly ran onto the court mid-play and started kissing the men, including my dad, and kind of jiggled her well-developed upper half against him in particular before running off into the cold night, leaving everyone staring in shock. Well, that really disrupted the game, and my dad, who was normally composed, was so thrown off he hardly said anything driving back with me, and he went home and told my mom about the incident, I think ready for her to be miffed about it---you know women, right---but she said yeah, she’d heard on the news about some weirdo doing that around the city. Mom seemed to think it was funny, so my dad, relieved, said to her, “I feel so violated and abused, Cath...”  Mom said, “Sure you do!” Ha.

23.   I also got to stay up late in ’87 watching Doctor Who on Saturdays on Channel 48, and sometimes Elvira’s Movie Macabre on Channel 64 on Friday nights, but I usually fell asleep watching those and woke up the next morning mysteriously in my bed, never sure how I made it there. (I suspect a parent….mebbe?)

24.   As I’ve said, my mom changed my destiny as a teenager because she was never on time to pick me up after school, something that was also true in my elementary years in the ‘80s. In fact the only way I got to school on time in the mornings was my dad, who was NEVER late for anything, drove me in, and normally Mom’s eccentric tardiness wasn’t that big a deal, I’d just stand in the lobby waiting, but for some reason one afternoon I walked outside to wait for her and went over and sat on the swings behind the school, and she must’ve been really late this one day because it was cold and the sky actually got dim and I couldn’t get back inside. I was alone, which seems absolutely incredible to me to think about, eight years old and left there, probably thinking of the lurid stranger danger film, I dunno, so I stood out with my bare legs freezing in winter temperatures, and let me tell you, whoever designed Catholic school uniforms probably never had to wear one, because those things are insanely impractical with the winter wind rushing up to freeze you. My mom was chagrined at being well over an hour late and did try to do better for a while, but even by looser Irish standards there is just some quirk in her nature that resists grasping the concept of a set time, and I bet she picked me up when she was supposed to less than one day a week throughout my entire school career. (No buses where I went.)


25.   Near Christmas 1987 I remember my dad went to a funeral that deeply upset him. He was gone a couple days since it was held in a southern state, and afterward he spent time with the surviving family of this person. What sticks out in my mind is when he told me the service was held above an un-dug grave with a headstone put there, which he told me was called a cenotaph, and when I asked why, he said because the body of the person “will never come home.” Only years later would he tell me the whole story, and how it was a service for a co-worker who died in the line of duty under torture. And my dad had known the man well. People do good work in the job my father did and find the reward in that, yes, but I think there is an element of addiction in many who do that job. The delight of getting back safely, of pulling off the task at hand, that feeling is so intoxicatingly great compared to the mundane emotions normal life gives that it compels those doing the work to keep on going so they can find that high again. It’s not a sensation that can be explained, you’d have to feel it. I think it was in 1987, that early, that long ago, that I caught on how deep into another sort of life my dad was. Coming to that realization was probably the first time I felt deeply aware that he was part of something truly scary, literally a type of unspoken war with real consequences and casualties; that he could someday be in one of those empty graves with a monument called a cenotaph. It was like leaving a room where you’d been safe and happy all your life, and from then on nothing is ever exactly the same, because after that you’re aware of how dangerous life is.

That is how I remember 1987.

[retrorussell]

2009:

1. My brother introduced me to his girlfriend's 1-year old dog named Mya.  She (and my brother) came to live at my house when I bought it the following year, and I just lost her in recent weeks.  What a sweet girl.  She had so many problems in her life but she toughed it out (attacked by another dog as a puppy, with some lasting issues).  It took me a while to break down the morning she died, but it sure kept me from being able to go to work.  Miss you Mya.
2. The father of cryptocurrency, BITCOIN, is introduced.
3. The Gaza War basically ends with a ceasefire between Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces (though there are still some airstrikes afterwards).
4. 173 die in bushfires in Victoria, Australia.
5. The Sri Lankan Civil War finally ends with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
6. I spent the weekends of much of this year going house-shopping with my folks.  It was so awesome that they were so supportive.  I stayed a couple times over at their house with their dog (a pitbull mix) who was very sweet and loved to play "keep away" with me with his toys.  Met my real estate agent this year and I liked her; met her for coffee a lot.
7. Air France Flight 447 crashes in the Atlantic Ocean; all 228 die.
8. The King of Pop, Michael Jackson, dies.  On my birthday no less!
9. My Portland Trailblazers had a great record with some great talent (like Brandon Roy and Lamarcus Aldridge) and a promising young bench-- though, without their #1 draft pick Greg Oden who missed his whole first season (and was thereafter on the court very little, making the pick a massive bust).  Unfortunately they lost 4 games to 2 in the first round vs. Yao Ming and the Houston Rockets.  I remember working in the Post Operation Ward and watching the series in the waiting room.  Major bummer for a 54-win season.
10. Kobe Bryant, without Shaquille O'Neal, shows he can win it all without the Big Fella and takes the NBA Championship over Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic in 5 games.
11. SUPER BOWL XLIII: I hate the Steelers.. my brother who worked at a bar in Hillsboro OR had the family there to watch the big game.  My other brother and I were really hoping the Cardinals (in their first Super Bowl) would take it and it was close.. but no.  I remember wishing the Gatorade bath for winning coach Mike Tomlin was actually pee.
12. Yemenia Flight 266 crashes into the Indian Sea, killing 152 of 153.
13. A massive typhoon hits Taiwan; 673 die.
14. A swine flu pandemic hits, stemming from the H1N1 virus.  Worldwide, deaths range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands before vaccines help end it the following year.
15. WORLD SERIES: The New York Yankees win yet another title, this one in 6 games over the Philadelphia Phillies.  Hideki Matsui is the first Japanese player to win World Series MVP.
16. STANLEY CUP: The Pittsburgh Penguins win their franchise's 3rd Stanley Cup, over the Detroit Red Wings in 7 games.  My team, the New Jersey Devils, crashed and burned in the 1st round when they allowed 2 goals in the final 1:20 to lose their series in game 7.
17. It was strange to not see Tiger Woods win any Major Championship.
18. Kim Clijsters wins the Women's US Open in tennis.  I remember not knowing how to pronounce her name, thinking it looked like "Clitsters".  That can't be right!
19. Big movies of 2009: THE HURT LOCKER, BRUNO, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, THE HANGOVER, AVATAR (which sets box office records), UP, STAR TREK,  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, TAKEN, FAST & FURIOUS, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, TERMINATOR: SALVATION, CORALINE (I remember thinking of the song ROSES by Outkast-- "Caroline/Coraline, she's the reason for the word b*tch"), DISTRICT 9, THIS IS IT, LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, WATCHMEN, YEAR ONE, SAW VI, THE BLIND SIDE, TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE, SHERLOCK HOLMES, MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D, FRIDAY THE 13TH, GI JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, ZOMBIELAND, BLACK DYNAMITE, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON, ANTICHRIST, SHERLOCK HOLMES, ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKUEL.
20. Moviegoing experiences of this year: Went to see MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D with my mom (!), and while we both liked the original 1981 flick we kind of agreed this wasn't so great, especially with the overbearing 3D that we didn't really need.  Saw FRIDAY THE 13TH by myself and was not impressed (though Derek Mears made a great Jason), and went with my sister to LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, which wasn't very good.  It was funny, however, that it did play as a double bill with the Michael Jackson bio film THIS IS IT-- the marquee read MICHAEL JACKSON and LAW ABIDING CITIZEN.. lol!
21. A typhoon along the Philippines, Manila and Thailand kills hundreds.
22. An earthquake kills over 1,000 in Indonesia.
23. TV debuts: HANNITY, RU PAUL'S DRAG RACE, LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON, THE ED SHOW, PARKS AND RECREATION, GLEE, TOSH.0, 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, PAWN STARS, SHARK TANK, THE DR. OZ SHOW, SABRINA: THE ANIMATED SERIES, NCIS: LOS ANGELES, THE GOOD WIFE, MODERN FAMILY, THE CLEVELAND SHOW, THE PRISONER, JERSEY SHORE, NARUTO: SHIPPUDEN, AMERICAN NINJA WARRIOR, and...

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24. I like the song USE SOMEBODY by Kings of Leon:

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25. I started a YouTube channel.  Still on, with over 1,300 videos uploaded.

[ER]

Memories of 1986: Into The Way-Back Machine

1.   A teacher from down the hall came running into our first-grade classroom shouting, “It blew up! The space shuttle blew up!” We were sent into the cafeteria to watch the news about the Challenger, and it was upsetting because they’d put so much emphasis on a teacher being on the mission that we felt we knew her. There were also baby chickens sent up, and little me was sorry to think of them being killed too.

2.   In early March a tornado passed right by the nascent subdivision we’d move into that summer, missing our unfinished house by a few hundred yards, and it went on to flip over planes at the airport, before swirling toward the riverfront and damaging the dome of a beautiful 19th century baroque church built by German immigrants. Here is the church, to give you an idea how beautiful it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_of_God_Roman_Catholic_Church_(Covington,_Kentucky)

3.   For the first half of the year we were still in our townhouse in Montgomery, Ohio, and I liked it there because it had my beloved library, and it had a nice park where my mom and I would walk, filled with century-old trees. (Which would themselves be flattened by another tornado in 1999, jeez!) When we moved to our brand new house in Burlington, Kentucky, on the other side of the city, I was excited and happy right up til the last minute, then I cried about leaving our home, the only one I could remember.

4.   Burlington was nice though. There was an international airport within sight of our back deck, there were only a couple finished houses in the subdivision, and constant construction on new homes, so it was fun to play there after workers went home. We were also a few minutes from a big mall, and the new library down the road was soon in my good graces. I did have to switch schools that fall, but was cool with it by then and didn’t think about Montgomery so much.

5.   On TV I liked Sledgehammer, which was all about this goofy, bug-eyed cop who loved his gun and was about as un-PC as can be imagined. Since it was largely about cartoonish sight gags, I found it hilarious and understood it just fine. Not sure how well the humor would hold up today but as far as the1980s are concerned the emo 2020s can run off and have a good cry.

6.   Chernobyl’s reactor exploded that April, and was a Very Big Deal. My mom had us eat powdered kelp for months to get iodine to help our thyroids in case of radiation exposure. At first that made me gag but after a while I got to like it well enough to snack on sheets of nori, and my dad used to tell me the song “Turning Japanese” was about me.

7.   Halley’s Comet made its return in ’86 and was a major pop culture star that spring. In the end we couldn’t see it, we got ripped off, and I’d have to wait eleven more years to see a comet, the beautiful Amish-broom like Hale-Bopp.

8.   I remember Imelda Marcos’ gazillion pairs of shoes being on the news. I have never cared about shoes beyond function, if I like a pair I’ll buy it, that’s about it, so the fantasy of owning all that footwear skipped over me, but some adults I knew went gaga at the idea.

9.   I saw the movie Labyrinth four times, which was almost unprecedented for me. I knew who Bowie was before then but from then on he became relevant in my life. I think maybe the movie soundtrack was the first I ever bought, and I played it for weeks, loving those songs.

10.   I also saw Stand By Me because my cousin had a bootleg VHS tape of it while it was still in theaters, and it’s another ’86 movie that’s still a favorite of mine. That Christmas we got our own VCR and the world opened up. My dad had a copy of The Holy Grail, and we watched it together too many times to count.

11.   My grandpa asked if I wanted to go to Chicago with him for the weekend, and I said sure, but what I didn’t know was we’d be flying there on his friend’s Cessna, and that was like adding two cherries atop a sundae. Awwwwwwesome experience! Before we came home we saw the Lions of Tsavo in the Field Museum, which were disappointingly undramatic in aspect, but still, eating a hundred people isn’t an achievement to sneeze at.

12.   For her twelfth birthday Dana wanted an Elvis impersonator, so her dad got her one. Her parents were going through a divorce and Dana was a pro at playing them against each other in a “who loves me more” contest. She was a jerk to me at her party, but the next morning she phoned and recalled all the cool things from that day, and finally I just went along with it and knew that was how she was sometimes, kinda mean for no reason but most of the time she looked out for me and did thoughtful things, a pattern that continues, as she’s been slinging attitude at me all this month saying I am “holding some secret back” instead of telling her what it is, and no matter how many times I tell her I have no idea what she means, she tries to go Spanish Inquisition on me to ferret whatever it is out, yet she also bought me a pretty silver necklace the other night, for no reason, just said she thought I’d like it. Shrug, that’s my big sister-ish cousin for you, the carrot and the two-by-four.

13.   My mom was an inimitable mix of rule-abiding and earthiness, and was strangely unabashed about some things, such as one day she called to me from the bathroom in this put-out tone to come get my wet swimsuit and goggles out of the tub, and when I went in she was standing there totally naked, pointing down at the things I was to pick up, no apparent awkwardness about her seven-year-old coming in while she was sky-clad waiting to take a shower,. I turned boiled-lobster red, grabbed my stuff and hustled out. Later she said, “You’re getting older, so I guess I shouldn’t have done that, should I?” I assured her it was OK, but inside I was thinking….no! But then I was an easily embarrassed kid. And for the record, my mom was only twenty-five at the time and turned the heads of plenty of men who would have given up a pinkie to be me at that moment.

14.   In 1986 the Orange Order seemed to really “show its arse” as they say over there, marching through Catholic neighborhoods and being dangerously offensive. This was mostly in the North, but things got scary enough even as far down as Connaught that my mom almost canceled us going to see her folks that summer, and although I am not sure of exact details, one night, amid flashing lights, several streets by where my grandparents lived got closed off, Gardai with bullhorns were telling people to stay inside their homes, and there was a curfew. I recall the news about the Portadown police station bombing just before we came home, and recall that dick Ian Paisley screaming on TV about wanting justice, even as he fanned the flames by saying truly derogatory things about Catholics. (How that fool died a natural death in old age defies all odds.) It was a terrible summer for The Troubles.

15.   I started second grade in Kentucky right after I got home from Ireland, and my teacher was a really nice lady whose maiden name had been the utterly Italian Battinanglio, which she used to say fast at random moments to make us giggle. Thing was, she must’ve weighed 250 pounds and stood maybe five-four. None of us ever commented on her weight, because she was so nice, but on the playground kids in other classes disparaged her for being rotund, and when we heard them we’d retaliate. One afternoon this led to an actual fistfight between a boy who sat in my row in class, Scott, and a lad from another room, and while they each got in trouble with our sadist principal, our teacher knew Scott was defending her honor, so she was extra sweet to him.

16.   My school gave eye exams a couple weeks into the academic year and I told them I’d just had one when I had my checkup, but they made me take it again during dodge ball day at recess no less, which activated my innate stubbornness, and I deliberately told the school nurse nothing but wrong answers off the chart. She was flabbergasted and wrote a note to my mom saying I qualified as legally blind and she didn’t understand how I’d fallen between the cracks for so long. My mom took one glance at the note, huffed and said, “What did you do? You take that test right tomorrow.” So I did and the nurse was annoyed with me for my “stunt.”

17.   My father was in Angola that year (at least I am 90% sure it was that year….) and while I got the impression it was not a pleasant place to be, I’d eventually find out just how unpleasant.

18.   I desperately wanted a dog, and it is one of my life’s mysteries why I was never allowed one; in fact I didn’t get my first dog til Charlotte Sometimes in 1994. But it was particularly painful in 1986 because a kid from our church had a collie who had a beautiful littler of Collie-Alsatian pups and they were only a hundred dollars each. I begged, pleaded, bargained for one, but was told no. As I said I still have never gotten a reason for why I was deprived of a dog for so long, and it’s enough to make my mind drift into the X-Files for explanations.

19.   There was a wolf spider the size of a tostado under my sheets one night, and my voice was hoarse the next day from screaming so loud.

20.   I had my First Confession that year, and it was such a big deal that the teacher practiced with us, playing the part of “Father” and we had to get the formula of Confession just right---I guess ‘cause God only listens if you say the magic words---and the rule for practice Confession was you told made up sins, nothing real. (“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned by stealing a cowboy’s horse and eating it….”) When the day came to confess for real I couldn’t think of anything I’d done wrong to tell the priest, so I made more things up and maybe went too far, because when we compared penances later in class, I found I got a lot more Hail Mary’s than most. Dana tried to get me to confess I’d had something called “oral sex” and while I didn’t know what that was, I was wise enough to know if she was keen on me telling a priest that, I was better off not following through.

21.   Halloween sucked, because my dad, who was cooler about Halloween than my mother was, was not home, my mom didn’t want to drive me to another neighborhood, and there were about twelve houses in our entire subdivision finished and occupied, with half of those not giving out candy. Trick or treating took about ten minutes, and I felt so wronged….

22.   That Thanksgiving my grandma, a really beautiful lady with a strategist’s mind, made a wordless statement to her middle child when she invited my Uncle Lark, her daughter’s mint-condition ex-husband, to dine with us at her house after my Aunt Jude (Judith) declined and said she was having Thanksgiving with her friend across town. It was a masterstroke that said everything while saying nothing, and since I liked Uncle Lark a lot more than my ever-bossy lawyer aunt, I grasped the situation even as young as I was, and thought my grandma was awesome to play politics like that. Aunt Jude got soooo mad….


23.   I didn’t like eating meat. It felt philosophically wrong, plus I just didn’t enjoy it, so I said I was going to stop eating anything that had a face. My parents said, OK, that’s cool, and for probably ten months I did stop. I am not sure why I started again, maybe because I knew it made my grandma sad when I wouldn’t try things she fixed, but it was my first touchdown into vegetarian country, where I still swing my fork today.

24.   We had an Atari 1200XL computer (128K of RAM….wowwww!!!!) hooked to our one and only TV, and my dad was a member of an Atari Users Group that met one Saturday a month in the basement of a bank off US-42, and Dad would bring home stacks of big floppy discs filled with games, and 1986 had some amazing titles, like Kronos Rift, by George Lucas’s short-lived software company; Destroy the Dark Tower; and Activision’s Olympics, which Dad and I played head-to-head a lot, but my favorite was also one of the simplest and on the surface, least impressive, called Tapper, in which you were an Old West bartender who filled up miners’ and cowboy’s mugs when they slung them down the bar. Let three glasses hit the floor and it was Game Over. Dad couldn’t figure out why such a difficult and pointless game compelled me to spend so much time on it but it ate up hours of my seven-year-old life.

25.   I turned eight in the last week of the year, and usually when I was given a present I was told, “Here’s a combination birthday and Christmas gift.” Gee, thanks! But that year my grandma told everyone to do better by me, and half the things I was given were for my birthday, distinct from Christmas. I hope that doesn’t make me sound ungrateful in a world where I realize many children don’t receive birthday presents at all, but it actually did mean a lot to feel like I was having a real birthday, even if it fell on Christmas Eve. I have long said I want to switch my birthday and celebrate on January 24th instead, but the only time I’ve come close to getting that was when I came home from Turkey in 2020, though I still think we should make it a new tradition.

And that, anyone who is reading this, was the twelvemonth we dub 1986.

[retrorussell]

2011:
1. One year in the books at my first house.  I think I ponied up for my first 60-inch hi-def tv.  Football was going to almost literally jump off the screen!
2. Deposed former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is captured and killed in the Battle of Sirte.  This is part of a massive slew of government overthrowings in or near the Middle East.
3. A massive 9.1 earthquake smashes eastern Japan, causing a resulting tsunami, and kills 15,840, making it deadlier than the Kobe earthquake 16 years prior.
4. Hundreds of protestors in Syria are killed by the government, starting the Syrian Civil War.
5. An outbreak of tornadoes in parts of the US kills 324.
6. Terrorist and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is killed by US forces in Pakistan.
7. A protest against economic equality in Wall Street sparks Occupy Wall Street.  The protesters are forced out within a couple months.
8. The Basque separatist military organization, ETA, ends its campaign of political violence after 43 years.
9. 600-some die in a 7.2 earthquake in Turkey.
10. US troops leave Iraq, ending the Iraq War.  Insurgencies, however, continue.
11. Tropical Storm Washi kills over a thousand in the Philippines.
12. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il dies of a heart attack/stroke.
13. SUPER BOWL XLV: Aaron Rodgers and the Packers win the franchise's 4th Super Bowl over the Steelers.  I had my folks/brother over for this.  When I have a bunch of people over I spare no expense for some good grub.  Trying to remember what we had; probably pizza, lasagna, chips/salsa, etc.
14. NBA Finals: I was thrilled to see Dirk Nowitzki win the Dallas Mavericks' first NBA title, over LeBron James and the Miami Heat, in 6 games.  Watched this from the pre-op unit I had to clean as part of my very demanding routine.
15. Was SUPER P*SSED that the Texas Rangers totally blew the World Series with a misplayed pop up that would have ended it in game 6.  The St. Louis Cardinals rally and win game 7 too.  Sucked.  That would have been the Rangers' first title (they still don't have one), while the Cards have a bajillion.  Watched it in the Post Op Surgery Unit (POPS).

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More later..

[retrorussell]

16. Also a bummer: the College Bowl Championship Game.  My Oregon Ducks reach their first, and fall *just* short to Cam Newton and Auburn.
17. Peyton Manning undergoes neck surgery, causing him to miss the entire 2011 season.  He is released by the Colts and joins another "horse" team-- the Denver Broncos.  Reminded me of John Elway being drafted by the Colts but playing for the Broncos instead.
18. Another bummer-- the Vancouver Canucks, still looking for their first Stanley Cup trophy, blow a 3-2 series lead over the Boston Bruins and fall in 7.  At least Boston won their first title in almost 30 years.
19. Big films: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HOLLOWS (part 2), TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES, TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN Pt. 1, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE GHOST PROTOCOL, FAST FIVE, HANGOVER PT. 2, THE ARTIST, HUGO, IRON LADY, THE HELP, THE MUPPETS, RANGO, THOR, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
20. TV debuts: GAME OF THRONES, AMERICAN HORROR STORY, HOMELAND, BLACK MIRROR, SHAMELESS, GRIMM, 2 BROKE GIRLS, BOB'S BURGERS, HELL ON WHEELS, WILFRED, LAST MAN STANDING, PORTLANDIA, THUNDERCATS, THE VOICE, AMAZING WORLD OF GUMBALL
21. Adele hits #1 with SOMEONE LIKE YOU and ROLLING IN THE DEEP.
22. TWO AND A HALF MEN halts production of the rest of their 8th season due to Charlie Sheen's rehab.  His contract is terminated and he is kicked off the show.
23. Gilbert Gottfried is fired by the Aflac corporation over jokes made on Twitter about the Japanese earthquake/tsunami.
A little more to come..

[retrorussell]

24. AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE changes its title to AQUA UNIT PATROL SQUAD 1.

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25. THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW ends after 25 seasons.
Bonus:
The NFL nearly has a lockout but settles on a collective bargaining agreement just in time.
Both ALL MY CHILDREN and ONE LIFE TO LIVE air their last episode, but will return 2 years later.
Hank Williams, Jr.'s MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL song is pulled after remarks on the show FOX AND FRIENDS comparing Obama to Hitler.
Saints QB Drew Brees sets a single-season NFL record for passing yards with 5,476.
An NBA lockout shortens the 2011-12 season to 66 games.
Former Penn St. football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky is found to have sexually abused children.  For covering this incident up, coach Joe Paterno and the University President are fired.