Welcome Back to 1995

It’s been 20 years.  What was life like – for me? (as if you care) – back then?

Household.  This was an efficiency at River Place, Rosslyn, Virginia, across Key Bridge from Georgetown, DC.  Since my brother was working next door at a Dilbertesque defense contractor, he was living with me at the time – about the only time since since college that I had a roommate.  A few years later he got married and moved out.

I’ve mentioned Rosslyn in a previous blog, so it doesn’t need much in the way of ad nauseam Turtledove repetition, but suffice to say that, with a Metro stop and walking distance to DC, plus Route 50, I-66, Route 29, and the GW Parkway, it’s hard to find a more convenient place to live in Northern Virginia.

Job.  I was working for Jerry, a sole practitioner who had moved to Virginia from California.  I had sworn into the Maryland bar in December 1993, passed the February 1994 Virginia bar and swore in down in Richmond in June 1994, but spent most of 1994 unemployed.  By December 1994 Jerry hired me back part-time.  By June 1995 I was back to full-time again.  The “firm” was just the two of us, so it gave me a lot of experience at a local level.  I zipped down to Richmond a few times to file appeals on concealed weapon permit cases.  Mostly I was handling traffic, criminal, and uncontested divorces in Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax and Prince William.  Although I was also licensed in Maryland, Jerry wasn’t, so he was reluctant to have me screw up there without the benefit of his supervision.  Fortunately I handled a few cases there without a problem.  If there was a hopeless case I could cut my teeth on, Jerry sent me there to get experience (e.g. kept Pablo out of jail despite a JDR judge who hated his guts).  Plus we’d go to the range or the gun stores – fairly often.  It wasn’t great in terms of pay, but it was very satisfying.

I also started working part-time at Trak Auto, plus taking automotive classes at NOVA Alexandria.  I learned enough in those classes to be able to pass a few ASE exams: engine repair, automatic transmissions, and manual transmissions. 

Two Weddings, A Beginning, and no Funeral.  In May, my friend Jim married his first wife Elizabeth, in Princeton, New Jersey.  I attended that wedding but left the reception fairly soon.  The very next weekend my sister married her first husband Kyle in Gaithersburg, Maryland.   In October, my friend Phil first met his ex-wife Julie at a bar in Arlington.  As for myself, I wasn’t even dating anyone – any dates were one-and-done – and my next GF wouldn’t arrive on the scene until October 1999.

Performance Upgrade.   In June 1995, after searching for a year and a half, I finally got the car I wanted as my daily driver: a 1992 Pontiac Firebird Formula “350”, one of the rare models with the 5.7L V8, the top engine available.  This was purchased used from a couple in Maryland, it was blue-green metallic with black interior, and no options except the potent V8.  The original owner had given it the SLP package, an impressive 50 HP upgrade installed by Koons Pontiac at Tysons Corner.  It wasn’t black, but it was very fast: almost 300 HP, a substantial difference from the 200 HP in the 1992 base Firebird I had been driving up till then, and which I sold to Jerry immediately. 

In fall of that year, my friend Phil and I took a trip up to Detroit in an attempt - unsuccessful - to purchase a 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400.  This was white with an ivy green interior and automatic.  It had been in California for most of its life, so it had no rust.  But it wouldn't start, and we couldn't get a tow truck to bring it back, so we had to cancel the purchase and drive back in a rental car.  Too bad.

Music.  I saw Hawkwind at Jaxx, Grateful Dead at RFK (one of the last shows with Jerry Garcia), White Zombie (twice), once with Kyuss, and Ozzy Osbourne.  I had my Gibson SG ’62 reissue, my Gibson Explorer ’76 reissue, a Fender Stratocaster (62 Vintage Reissue), and my Marshall 2554 Jubilee Edition 1x12” combo, 25/50 watts. 

The outside world.  Bill Clinton was President – he’d trounce Bob Dole in 1996.  The Internet was just getting cranked up; most of us still used America Online (AOL: “You’ve got mail!”) or Prodigy.  Cell phones were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are now, and we still kept land lines as a matter of course.  The top films were “Twelve Monkeys”, “Toy Story” (the first one), “Braveheart”, “The Usual Suspects” (one of Kevin Spacey’s first films), and “Batman Forever”, Val Kilmer’s only shot (Riddler & Two-Face were the villains).  Kilmer also managed to do “Heat” in this same year, a seriously underrated film which puts Al Pacino and Robert Deniro against each other.