Where were you freshman year?

Members of Salon's reader community, Table Talk, tell us five things about their breakthrough year, this week.

Published May 11, 2007 9:23AM (EDT)

Private Life

Five Things About You

Oedipa Maas -- 01:59 pm Pacific Time -- May 9, 2007 -- #5836 of 5856

Five really 1999y things about my freshman year of college:

1. Napster
2. Watching "The Matrix" every time it was on campus TV
3. Urbanfetch
4. Using a webcam to make more "Sifl & Olly" episodes with my roommate
5. Cargo pants

Nicola O. -- 03:08 pm Pacific Time -- May 9, 2007 -- #5837 of 5856

Five really 1984 things about my freshman year in college:

1. CD players
2. Watching "Caddyshack" every time it showed on campus movies
3. Kinko's
4. Watching "Star Trek" and "M*A*S*H" reruns (I don't think there are any good 1984 analogies to DIY "Sifl & Olly")
5. Parachute pants

Sir Realist - 04:11 pm Pacific Time -- May 9, 2007 -- #5838 of 5856

Five really 1967y about my freshman year in college:

1) "Sgt. Pepper's" came out
2) I was one of two people on my dorm floor who did not pledge a fraternity
3) A guy from my high school homeroom died in Vietnam
4) When I started growing a beard I got harassed
5) Parents were worried about "heavy petting"

tamarind - 04:57 pm Pacific Time -- May 9, 2007 -- #5839 of 5856

Five really 2001y things about my freshman year of college:

1. My roommate waking me up early one morning to tell me that someone had attacked the World Trade Center and stumbling down to the common room to watch the planes crash into the towers on TV
2. Seeing the proliferation of 9/11 stickers, signs, and American flags each time I went off campus
3. Signs in the campus mailroom on how to identify anthrax
4. Seeing armed National Guard members in the airport for the first time when I flew home for Thanksgiving
5. Watching a bootleg of LOTR ["Lord of the Rings"] on someone's computer

BurstOfLethargy -- 05:38 pm Pacific Time -- May 9, 2007 -- #5841 of 5856

Five really 1984-'88 things about my years in college:

1. Turntables
2. "Sgt. Pepper's" came out on CD
3. Reggae
4. A formally announced, heavily attended "communal moan" on the football field on Wednesday, November 7, of frosh year
5. Divestment-from-South Africa protests

longtime -- 06:32 pm Pacific Time -- May 9, 2007 -- #5844 of 5856

Five things about my mid-to-late-'60s college days:

1. Watching "Batman," "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," and the original series of "Star Trek" on a black-and-white TV in the TV lounge
2. Having an impromptu celebration when President Johnson announced that he wasn't running
3. Hearing another student say, "My brother's going to Vietnam to be killed"
4. Learning to string love beads
5. Hearing the Doors' first album and being blown away

hedy -- 06:35 pm Pacific Time -- May 9, 2007 -- #5845 of 5856

Five very late '80s to early '90s things about my years in college:

1) Frat boys thinking their "Frat Boys for Bush" shirts were clever
2) Watching the Detroit Bad Boys beat the Portland Trail Blazers in the [NBA] finals.
3) Nelson Mandela being released on my 21st birthday. I got really drunk.
4) Becoming aware for the first time of what "corporate-owned media" meant in my "politics and media" class
5) While in my "politics and media" class, hearing someone running down the hall of the ag building yelling "We're at war! We're at war!" when Operation Desert Storm began in January 1991

Jeanny - 06:37 pm Pacific Time -- May 9, 2007 -- #5846 of 5856

Five things about my mid-1970s college years:

1. The beginning of "Saturday Night Live"
2. "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman"
3. Watergate hearings and Nixon's resignation, which actually drew a larger crowd in the TV lounge than ...
4. "All My Children"
5. The Vietnam War ending

Dernhelm -- 06:37 pm Pacific Time -- May 9, 2007 -- #5847 of 5856

Five very mid-'90s things about my university years:

1. "Singled Out" on MTV with Jenny McCarthy
2. Staying up all night when I discovered the Web, browsing on Netscape, of course
3. O.J. Simpson trial
4. Menendez brothers trial
5. Hanging out at the Brew 'n' View (and in particular being forever scarred by a showing of the old "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory")

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