15 things 2007 freshman don't remember.

[Swede]

In reality, most 2007 college freshmen were born in 1989 and probably barely remember any the following… it’s scary:

1. The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
2. Ronald Reagan
3. The Cold War and the Berlin Wall
4. Hardback (Funk & Wagnalls) encyclopedia sets
5. Getting tangled up in a long kitchen phone cord
6. Setting the record timer on your VCR
7. When Michael Jackson and the moonwalk were cool
8. Recording music off the radio
9. Desert Storm
10. A floppy disk
11. Windows 95
12. The Nintendo Entertainment System (and Duck Hunt)
13. The Oklahoma City Bombing
14. The O.J. Simpson Trial
15. Life before the World Wide Web

[pintobean]

1. We still record music off the radio

It's a lot easier now; just the push of a button with XM.

[hellbound-liberal]

2. I'll bet a lot of them don't remember much from their senior year in high school either!

Unfortunately, as our principal noted at graduation, the students that graduated this year did live through their share of tragedies: 9/11, The D.C. sniper, Hurricane Katrina, and The tragedy at Virginia Tech. I can only imagine how these violent tragedies have affected their outlook on life.

[treestar]

5. I actually think those things are less scary than the Cold War

That at least had an end and weren't ongoing for years.

Of course, between us and the Russians, we could still blow up the planet several times over, but the focus is off that.

But the idea that all of mankind could be wiped out and living with that day in and day out is worse than the odds that some tragedy with a terminus to it statistically could hit us individually isn't as bad.

[SarahB]

6. My boys are 11, 9, and 6.

They don't know what it is to not live in a country at war. They've had many friends with parents in the reserves now on their second (or more) 18 month tour. That I find pretty sad too. :(

[hellbound-liberal]

8. Unfortunately, I see the military as the only reliable growth industry in the US

for the forseeable future. Oh yeah, the prison industry will probably see good growth too.

[mitchum]

20. I had the same experience as a kid (born 1960) in that I thought that...

the Vietnam War had been going on forever and would continue to do so

[eyesroll]

3. It appalled me that the 20-year-old intern at work was born after Challenger and didn't

know "Crazy Train" -- he thought Ozzy was that weird guy with that MTV show when he was in high school.

[lost-in-nj]

4. Wow

I remember all those.....

#10 a floppy disk for you Commodore 64
#12 DUCK HUNT OMG
I remember.....
we had a tank game to......
LOL

thanks......


lost

I remember my brother introducing me to this thing called the internet.....
a long time ago
It was all words...no pictures
no ads
no spam
all long boring paragraphs.....but to him it was
Nirvana..... he was a computer geek....

now look at it!!!

[outofbounds]

7. I wonder

How the freshman class would react to no remote controls or better yet going outside in the rain and twisting the pole the antenna was on to fine tune one of the three channels on the TV. You remember right? Your father screaming out the window "GO BACK, GO BACK, STOP!":shrug:

[Nikia]

9. Why wouldn't they remember Windows 95?

Children learn how to use computers early now and not everyone has the latest software.

[LibDemAlways]

10. I am constantly bombarding my 14 year old with

stories about how life used to be for me and also filling her in on recent events she missed or was too young to understand. The other day a picture of JFK Jr. appeared on the tv screen, and she asked "Who's that?" When I told her he was President Kennedy's son who died in a plane crash in 1999, she said, "Kennedy's son was that young in 1999? I thought Kennedy died a long time ago." I sometimes forget that she doesn't have the bigger picture when it comes to the recent past - in part because every time she's had US History in school, it begins with Columbus and ends with the Civil War. The schools are so consumed with teaching pre-determined "standards" so kids can pass a standardized test, that they completely ignore what we used to call "current events" and history class never makes it to the 20th century.

[Reverend_Smitty]

11. those first few were quite a while ago

I graduated from college a year ago and I don't have any first hand memory of the Challenger disaster and I was only 4 in 1988 so I really have no memory of the Reagan presidency. I do vaguely remember the Berlin Wall falling...the rest I have first hand memories of...especially Nintendo. I think in 20 years there will be a ton of cases of Arthritis in thumbs from years of repetitive game play

[ghostsofgiants]

12. Yeah...

It's terrifying that people born at a later date than you wouldn't remember things they didn't experience. :eyes:

[bigwillq]

14. HA!

I laughed at your post. :rofl: I thought it was funny.

[Swede]

23. It's just a not so subtle reminder how quickly those 18 years went by.

Nothing more,nothing less.

[Zomby Woof]

13. I was born in 1967

I don't remember the following:

1. JFK's assassination (or RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X's for that matter)
2. Eisenhower sending troops to Little Rock to enforce integration
3. The Cuban Missile Crisis
4. The Bay of Pigs
5. Sputnik
6. The Tet Offensive
7. John Glenn orbiting Earth
8. The Watts riots
9. The advent of color TV
10. The Six Day War
11. Richard Nixon's first inauguration
12. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan
13. Alaska and Hawaii before they were states
14. Jack Paar hosting the Tonight Show
15. Walter Cronkite declaring Vietnam unwinnable

I don't see that as "scary", and I hope my generational predecessors don't either. It's the nature of history and time. Everyone thinks their era is exceptional.

It isn't.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

16. I think it's a kind of surreal 'scary' about getting older.

[Zomby Woof]

18. I just try not to sound like an old fogey

If I ever bore my grandson with talk about "we only had 3 channels" or "we didn't have the internet and were thankful", I will retract my post. ;-)

[trackfan]

22. The only ones of those that I actually remember from the time:

not necessarily because of when they happened chronologically, just what I know I remember remembering...

1-(all)
8
10
12

(I was born 1959)

[philosophie_en_rose]

15. Back in my day, we also played Halo. It was called duckhunt.

and we liked it!

[UrbScotty]

17. I graduated from HS in '05 and remember 10-15

I still occasionally use floppy disks, one of our old computers had Windows 95, many of my friends 'used' Nintendo, we discussed the Oklahoma City Bombing and OJ Simpson trials in my second and thiord grade classes (respectively), and I didn't get online until middle school.

[mitchum]

19. As ahistorical as Americans are, I imagine that there are plenty of 50 year olds...

who don't remember those events

[Hippo_Tron]

21. Well I was born in '87, here's the ones that I remember

4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14