ROANOKE TIMES  
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, June 5, 1996                TAG: 9606050019
SECTION: CURRENT                  PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY  
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
      Published correction ran on June 11, 1996.
         A total of seven astronauts, including teacher Christa McAuliffe, 
      died in the 1986 Challenger explosion. A June 5 story on graduation 
      memories incorrectly reported the number of astronauts killed. 

GRADS: THIS IS YOUR (POP CULTURE) LIFE!

When you were born, the Bee Gees were hotter than hot pants.

Sorry to say it, 1996 high school graduates, but you have some "disco fever" raging through your DNA strands.

But, that's OK, you've survived a lot worse in your 18 years: The Gulf War; the AIDS epidemic; parachute pants.

And now, for the next two weeks, more than 500 of you from across the New River Valley prepare to step into the unknown world of rent, "cozy" college classes of 500, and that first fateful load of laundry when you mix your red socks and your favorite white T-shirt.

Before you grab that diploma, kiss the principal and declare "Free at last!" take a moment to look back. The past two decades were a time of preppies and yuppies, of the Me-generation and the Generation Xer's. It's what, to a greater or lesser degree, shaped you, and this country, into what it is today. (Gulp!)

While you were lying in your crib discovering your toes, little bald aliens from the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" were discovering how profitable a young director named Steven Spielberg could be.

As Ronald Reagan marched into the White House, you probably were wobbling your way across the kitchen floor. Admit it, you were wearing an Izod Lacoste alligator on your drool bib, weren't you?

You girls might have remembered mom or dad saying you could grow up to be a Supreme Court justice, just like Sandra Day O'Connor did in 1981.

Or, they might have told you boys to be like Magic Johnson, who in the same year signed with the Los Angeles Lakers for a whopping $1 million a year, for the next 25 years.

At age 4, you were just old enough to fall in love with a finger-glowing wrinkled raisin named E.T. About that same time, people began dying of what we now know as the AIDS virus, forever changing the way future generations approached sexual intimacy.

While you were dressing your Cabbage Patch Doll, or slamming your Hulk Hogan figurine down on an unworthy wrestling opponent, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album was probably playing in the background. ("Album" - that's the big dark disc with all the grooves in it.)

Madonna hit the scene as you hit kindergarten. "We Are The World," that Christmas song performed by pop music's beautiful people, raised millions of dollars for famine relief in Africa. It also drove us slowly insane.

Remember when the Challenger exploded seconds after take-off? You were likely in the third grade, watching as millions of students did when teacher Christa McAuliff perished along with four others.

You grew up with the Keatons (from "Family Ties"), the Cosbys and maybe even the Golden Girls.

Speaking of television, who was the first to get MTV in your neighborhood? The 24-hour music video station showed us the latest bands, taught us the hippest lingo, dressed us in the coolest clothes. And it drove us slowly insane.

As you tackled middle school lockers taller than you were, East and West Germans toppled the Berlin Wall that had separated them for 25 years.

Your parents might have donned a "Support the Troops" sticker on their cars during the brief show of force that sent men and women to the Gulf War against Iraq.

By 1992, you knew it all. You were in high school, for crying out loud.

You knew "grunge" was was a look to emulate, not a bio-hazard to avoid. You knew "90210" was unrealistic and ridiculous, but you watched it anyway. You knew the Internet better than your parents, your teachers - but maybe not better than your little brother.

So, here you are, wise beyond your 18 years.

Do us a favor: Go out and fix all the mistakes made by your elders, and make the world a better place than when you found it. And, as you toss that hat up for all to see, ponder the words of President Jimmy Carter, spoken in 1978, the year you probably were born.

The greatest obstacle for a leader, he said, is the fear of failure.

"It is always a mistake," he continued, "to try for universal approval, because if you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement."

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