Ten years ago I was sitting on my parent's couch, watching the NBA Finals and eating a ham sandwich when the broadcast was interrupted to show live footage of OJ's white Bronco creeping down the freeway with a menagerie of law enforcement vehicles behind it. It is rare when an event freezes in time, embeds itself into your psyche and you can remember the most inane details surrounding that event for the rest of your life. I can tell you, for example, that I was seated in my sixth grade classroom listening to my teacher ramble on about the Philippines and his time in the Peace Corps when it was announced over the intercom that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. Or one night in November 1989, when my father interrupted my phone serenade of "Love Bites" to my junior high school girlfriend Becky to tell me that the Berlin Wall had fallen. Most importantly, I remember that the Steve Miller Band song "The Joker" was playing on the radio and I nearly drove off the road when the girl I lost my virginity to told me she wanted to have sex with me.

Labels: glory days, history, pop culture