Dear Readers,
How about a new schedule? I was doing Sunday mornings for everyone and then also Wednesday for paid subscribers. But, as you know, things have gotten a little unsettled in my world. So I’ve decided to blow up the schedule for the time being and just post when I can.
Ok, so how about a news roundup . . . from 1995!!
Ah, 1995. I remember it well. There was the million-man march, the OJ acquittal, and, of course, the moment when Richey James Edwards, guitarist in the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers, disappeared!!
I’d actualy never heard of Richey James Edwards until I googled “major events of 1995” for this post. And then I went down the Richey James Edwards rabbithole. I’ll spare you the details, but it seems he might have staged his own disappearance, as he’s since been sighted by fans all over the world. Which is is kind of like Elvis, who was supposedly seen at a Kalamazoo, Michigan Burger King in 1988.1
Anyway, 1995 was a big year for me. It was in January of that year that I met the young woman who would eventually become my wife. She was only 18. Barely legal, as the perverts say.
My now mother-in-law, and new reader of History on Drugs, when she learned that her youngest had a “serious” boyfriend, famously told her daughter: “Ese tipo te va a dejar,” which, if we take into account the tone of her delivery (I wasn’t there, but I know the tone), roughly translates as: “That no-good scoundrel is going to dump you.” She then had a migraine for about a month, or so I’ve been told.
When my lawyer brother (whose work many of you know) met this new girlfriend of mine, he asked incredulously: “How old is this girl?” Eighteen! I swear!! 100% legal!!!
To my mother-in-law’s credit, I was a bit of a tipo in those days.
But this new barely-legal girlfriend quickly bewitched me, so I decided I should maybe get serious about my future. One thing led to another, and here I am, actually making a respectable living. Miracles do happen.
And now that barely-legal girlfriend is my wife of twenty-three years!! As I now tell her annually on our anniversary: “Whatever happens from here on out, we can always say we had a hell of a run!”
But back in 1995, we were just fresh-faced kids. Which is kind of like my new research assistant Sam.
Sam is an Honors student at the University of Cincinnati. A psychology major. She came to me via this great program in which humanities and social science faculty are encouraged to hire an Honors student as a research assistant over the summer. The program not only pays the student, but, for my trouble, they throw me a few bucks for my research fund. And since it’s no trouble at all, it’s a win-win.
Over the years I’ve had some dynamite students from that program—like this one and this one—who have helped me out with some really fascinating projects. And last summer I had another terrific RA who, while not part of the Honors RA program, was a standout history major who I was able to pay in part thanks to the money I’d earned for having these other great RAs helping me in previous summers! If you’re keeping score at home, that’s a win-win-win!
These most-recent RAs have been helping me with the early stages of my new project on our current overdose epidemic. That epidemic is usually dated to 1999, which is when word of Oxycontin overdoses started appearing in the media. That’s why you’ll see charts like this one from the CDC:
Thus last summer, when my previous RA and I started looking at overdose coverage in the media, we started in 1999 and moved forward from there. And I’ve got some fascinating stuff from that work that I’ll be sharing with you eventually.
However, this summer I decided that maybe it would be prudent to do a similar examination of the media, but to start a little earlier. In part this was just good, standard historical operating procedure—you never want to just accept the going periodizations. Make sure they make sense, people!
But there was also a hunch involved. Back in the fall when I interviewed Nancy Campbell, she told me that overdose deaths have actually been climbing since 1979. And some other conversations helped me remember heroin being a “thing” already by the mid-90s. I was mentioning this to my brother the other day and he reminded me of this line in Pulp Fiction:
I saw that movie with my barely-legal-girlfriend-now-wife in 1995 at the State Theater in Ann Arbor. We snuck two “duece dueces” (i.e. 22-ounce bottles) of Bell’s “Solsun” (today’s “Oberon”) into the building. We also rode to the movie together on my bicycle and, while riding through the University of Michigan’s “Diag,” crashed. But we were young and healthy so it was just hilarious and wildly romantic. Those were the days.
Anyway, now I’m interested in heroin in the mid-1990s, so Sam and I have started poking around in 1995. And we’ve already found some good stuff! But let’s save that for next time.
Sadly, that Burger King is now a Walgreen’s. What happened to historic preservation!!
Love this post. But doesn’t this story also include a bottle of Mescal and Derek Jeter?