Happy Birthday Cameron!

Today is my baby's 15th birthday! I feel incredibly old. However, considering my parent's "baby" is 47 years old, I guess I shouldn't feel so bad. For every negative, there is a positive. For instance, this week I realized that one good thing about a recession is that you can ALWAYS get a great parking spot at the mall.

When Alex and Cameron were born, I began saving the newspaper from their birthdays. In honor of Cameron's 15th, I thought it would be fun to pull out the Free Press and the Canton Observer I saved from February 27, 1994 to see what was happening in 1994.

Headline News

On the day Cameron was born, the closing ceremonies for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway were taking place. Athletes who were in the news included Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding (remember the knee blowout at Joe Louis that year?). Nancy won a silver medal in figure skating, 16-year old Oksana Baiul won the gold, and Tony Harding cried about her skate lace coming undone and asked for a re-do of her routine. Speed skater Dan Jansen had a dramatic finish in one of his races and won a gold medal. Atlanta was now preparing to host the 1996 summer games.

The Davidians were found guilty of manslaughter, as opposed to murder for the death of four federal agents after a 51-day standoff with cult leader, David Koresh, in Waco, Texas in 1993. Seventy-nine people died in a fire that ensued after the government bombed the cult with tear gas.

On the local home front, Detroit Police Chief Isaiah McKinnon was investigating the finances of the Detroit Police Department. Electronic equipment had gone missing, as well as documentation for personal service contracts that cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sadly, not much has changed for the city of Detroit.

Detroit was about to host a jobs summit and California businessman, William Bridges, wrote a commentary on the status of jobs in America. He said "jobs are disappearing and being replaced by part-time, temporary, and contract positions." He predicted that jobs, as we know them, are no longer suited to meet the needs of the times. Twenty-five years from now, most people won't have jobs. They'll be hired, trained and paid to do whatever needs doing, and then let go.

Mayor Dennis Archer met with the Tiger Stadium Fan Club to discuss renovating the stadium for $30 million. Tiger owner, Mike Ilitch, had his own plans to build a new stadium using $175 of his own money, while hoping to generate $200 million in public funding.

Canton News

Groundbreaking on the Summit was about two months away with a projected opening of August 1995.

Homes in Sunflower Village, The Fairways, and Royal Pointe were still being built and available for sale from the mid $180s in Sunflower up to the mid $240 for the Fairways.

The weekly Observer had six full pages of want ads, many of them looking for secretarial or administrative help with Word Perfect or word processing skills.

Business

Stock prices for Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were 56, 61-1/2, and 58-1/4. Crowley's department store was struggling to make a comeback, and Hudson's was still Hudson's! You could buy a 1994 Grand Cherokee Laredo 4 x 4 for $22,188, a 1994 Chrysler minivan for $13,873, and a 1994 Crown Vic for $17,295. A lease on a 1994 Jimmy would cost you $349 per month.

Atlanta-based Home Depot was opening their first mid-west store in Pontiac, on Telegraph. Five stores in the state were to follow later that year in Canton, Redford, Northville, and Warren.

The Free Press/Detroit News want ads in the Sunday edition consisted of 23 full pages of ads. Many of them looking for engineers, designers, and CAD employees. You could get a 30-year fixed mortgage for 7.35%.

An article about the boom of "email" included a description of what email was as "sending electronic messages." Can you imagine, they had to include a description because it was still unfamiliar territory.

Entertainment

The Grammy nominations featured new bands on the horizon like Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, Snoop Doggy Dog and Dr. Dre, Nirvana, and Stone Temple Pilots.

Billy Ray Cyrus was playing at the Palace. Miley was only what, maybe two years old?

Movies at the theater included The Getaway with Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassinger, Ace Ventura Pet Detective with Jim Carrey, Body Snatchers, Disney's Blank Check, Angie with Geena Davis, China Moon with Ed Harris and Madeleine Stowe, Schindler's List with Liam Neeson, In the Name of the Father with Daniel Day Lewis, The Piano with Anna Pacquin, and Reality Bites with Winona Ryder, Ben Stiller and Ethan Hawke.

Rosie O'Donnel was starring in Grease on Broadway, Marie Osmond was starring in the Sound of Music, and Greg Kinnear was the host of E!.

Oscar nominees included films like Philadelphia, Remains of the Day, Schindler's List, and What's Love Got to Do With It?

On TV, some of our favorite shows included Evening Shade, Fresh Prince of Belair, Blossom, Murphy Brown, Northern Exposure, NYPD, Roseanne, Dr. Quinn--Medicine Woman (never saw it), The Nanny, 90210, Full House (with those little Olson twins), Melrose Place, Wings, Seinfeld, Frasier, Mad About You (whatever happened to Helen Hunt?), and Matlock (my mom's favorite).

Sports

The Red Wings were in first place in their division, two points over Toronto. Chris Osgood had just had his second shutout in a row and some of his teammates included Darren McCarty, Dino Ciccarelli, Shawn Burr, and Sergei Federov. The Pistons were in last place 25 games back of Atlanta. The Tigers roster consisted of Cecil Fielder, Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, Travis Fryman, Tony Phillips, Mickey Tettleton, Shecter Barnes, John Doherty, Eric Davis, Lance Parish, Mike Moore, Bill Gullickson, and David Wells. Personally, I never heard of half of those people. But what do I know.

Advertisements

In the weekly Target flyer, you could find a 25" Zenith TV for $299 and a VCR for $199. The only video games available were for the Genesis system and they included Sonic, Mortal Kombat, and Madden.

Portable CD players were available for $119.98. I used to have one that I would listen to while I walked on the treadmill. Thank God for Ipods, huh?

At Best Buy, you could purchase a Packard Bell Computer with 340 MB hard drive, 4MB memory, a printer, and a 14" screen all for $1,498. A Toshiba notebook with a 9.5" display screen, 120 MB hard drive, and 4MB memory would cost you $1,596.

Other deals of the week included VCR tapes for $1.99 each and Kodak Film! Do they even make film anymore?

Stores such as Fretter's Appliances and Frank's Nursery still had ads in the paper.

When I looked back at these newspapers today, all I could say was "wow, wow, wow." It's amazing how so much has changed, and yet very little has really changed. There is still war going on in the Middle East and Detroit is still a mess.

On the plus side, however, Cameron is sleeping through the night (morning and afternoons too while on mid-winter break), he can now drive in addition to feed himself, and he can now pick me up off the ground as opposed to me picking him up.

Happy birthday, Cameron. I shudder to think how fast the next 15 years are going to go. Soon, I may only be able to save an electronic edition of your birthday newspaper. We'll probably look back and think, "people used to get an actual paper?"