Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Indeed, as one gets older, the concept of "recent history" may well refer to an event that took place in say 1976, which is a date closer to 1936 than today.

1996 was a rough season for the Huskers  lost 2 games and did NOT win the MNC

Yeah, watched Back to the Future this weekend. The time warp back to 1955 would be 1996 if it were today. That just doesn't feel like very long ago. Although it was pre internet boom, 9/11, global war on terror, Katrina, Great Recession, Covid, and some other things that seem pretty important to the history of at least our country, if not the world.

Perhaps more relevant, pre-BCS! It was bowl game madness to determine the mythical national champion. The Big 10 only had 11 teams, and they all wanted to go the the Rose Bowl above all else; the SEC was driven to the Sugar Bowl, Nebraska was king of the CFB world, Joe Paterno was still loved, Syracuse mattered, Minnesota and Maryland had won national championships more recently than Michigan, there was no instant replay, most of your team's games weren't televised, MTV played music videos, we got our new music from the radio or at a record store, watched movies on VHS, a 55" TV was huge, and ESPN had some decent programming. Man, that was a long time ago.

Yeah, watched Back to the Future this weekend. The time warp back to 1955 would be 1996 if it were today. That just doesn't feel like very long ago. 

I'm just eyeballing this, so it's not scientific in the least, but it does seem that we've been on an exponential technological progress curve in my lifetime.  Ergo, I should feel like today is more different from 1996 than 1985 feels compared to 1955.  Yet I don't.  I wonder if that's because the gap between 1955 and 1985 is practically unfathomable to me--I wasn't around for most of it, and the tail end I was around for, I barely remember.  Conversely, I was well into high school by 1996 and lived through every moment--cultural, technological and otherwise--and so I experienced each incremental change and thus didn't notice it as much, kind of like how we don't notice ourselves getting older in the mirror, but if we go 5 years without seeing a friend we think "Wow, they've really changed."  All I really have with the Back To The Future gap is the impression--not a lived experience--of what life was like in 1955, and 1985 (okay, I can remember a little bit about 1985, but I was hardly out in the world doing things and making my own decisions).  So I have this concrete, set idea about 1955, and another one about 1985, and I view those two things entirely discretely.  Whereas 1996-present kind of mentally runs together, because it's all part of my ongoing inner narrative. 

Um.....sorry for the ramble.  If I had a point, I don't remember what it is now.