1989

From across the room I could read the sign -- 1989 in big red numbers. It didn't register right away -- you see signs like that in bars all of the time. Because it was in my line of sight, I kept looking at it over my lunch partner's left shoulder.

Then it dawned on me -- in order to legally drink in Ohio, you must have been born no later than 1989. Geez! 1989!

That was my last year in my 20s and I was freaking out about turning 30 that next year.

That was the year that the San Francisco 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals in the Superbowl, Mike Tyson and Robin Givens divorced, Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offered a $1M-$3M bounty on Salman Rushdie because of his novel "Satanic Verses", a 6-week study of the Arctic atmosphere showed no ozone "hole", "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" premiered, Pete Rose was suspended from baseball for life and hurricane Hugo hit. My daughter turned 2 that year.

Since I have a daughter who is older than 21, I should not really be shocked by things like this. Shoot, she has already been legal for more than a year!

But there is something about seeing it screaming at you in big red numbers that can be seen from across the room.