Born in 1992

If you were born in 1992, you were born in the year that Bill Clinton played saxophone on Arsenio Hall in sunglasses, said he'd tried marijuana but "didn't inhale," and won the presidency while the economy was sputtering and Ross Perot was waving his charts on television about the giant sucking sound. It was a particular kind of year. The LA riots in late April and early May—sparked by the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King—lasted six days, fifty-three people dead, a billion dollars in property damage, the city burning in footage that played around the world.

*Aladdin* and *A League of Their Own* and *Malcolm X* were at the theaters. "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men spent a record-breaking thirteen weeks at number one. The Barcelona Olympics had the first Dream Team—Jordan, Magic, Bird, Barkley—and it was the most dominant athletic spectacle in the history of team sports, the US winning by an average of forty-four points.

Johnny Carson retired from The Tonight Show after thirty years. Jay Leno and David Letterman fought over the desk. The mall was the center of American suburban social life, and the food court's Orange Julius and Sbarro were its sacraments.

A happy meal at McDonald's cost $2.59. Flannel was everywhere.

Something was ending and something was beginning.