Bobcats, it’s Day Two of Homecoming Week/throwback week at The Post, and today, we bring you a front page from 1986.
This brings me a great deal of joy, because now I’m going to spend two paragraphs talking about Bruce Springsteen — something I’ve been waiting my entire college career to do. Two years before the original version of today’s front page ran, Born in the USA was released (jeans, a cutoff white T-shirt and all), featuring several hits including “Dancing in the Dark” as well as “Glory Days.”
The album would indirectly lead to Courtney Cox’s fame, and unfortunately, the TBS sitcom Cougar Town. Even more unfortunately, the album artwork would prompt a rather forgettable late-90s Halloween costume sported by my father, Jay (jeans, a cutoff white T-shirt and all).
Big headlines from the decade include the Challenger space shuttle explosion and the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. Here at Ohio University, Charles Ping was in the middle of his tenure as the university’s 18th president.
Flipping through old versions of our paper from the 1980s proved very enjoyable for Managing Editor Rebecca McKinsey, Associate Editor Joe Fox and me — mostly for the cultural differences across 30 years, but also the similarities drawn between the decades.
What have changed the most, it appears, are the deals offered at Hoffa’s Records on West Union Street.
In ’86, you could buy “Compact Discs starting at $13.99” and 10-packs of TDK D90 cassettes for $15.17 as part of the store’s “Blank Tape 10-Pack Blowout!” Nowadays, any number of used CDs and vinyl records can be yours for a dollar.
Some things never change, though, and if you’d like, go ahead and guess which millennium the following headlines came from:
• Trustees vote to raise tuition
• University to de-emphasize alcohol throughout campus
• Planned Parenthood may lose funding
• Study reveals OU prefers quarter system
• ‘A Flock of Seagulls’ danceable, not lyrical
All of these, incidentally, are from the 1980s — and our most sincere apologies to any ‘Flock’ fans offended by that last one.
One can only assume OU running back Beau Blankenship listens to “I Ran” on repeat before every game based on the year he’s having.
As we inch closer to OU’s game against Akron this Saturday, I’ll say it again — Go Bobcats! And be sure to pick up tomorrow’s issue for a glimpse of the 1960s.
