The scene was the same almost every day. After scarfing down our lunches and rushing through the underground tunnels, we bolted back to our two-room suite at Walsh Hall.  We had to get back, after all—the world might have stopped had we missed our daily dose of “As the World Turns.”

The year was 1988. Five of us shared a cramped, two-room suite upon the frozen tundra at the University of North Dakota—two freshman, two sophomores, and one junior. In one room, were our beds (all but one lofted above our desks); and in the other: one raggedy couch, a broken-down easy chair, and an old tube tv that teetered atop a tapped keg.

Afternoons were for classes and catching up with soaps; and after supper, we’d tune in to hear Brokaw’s nightly epistle. We’d hear stories of how the Soviet empire was collapsing; and how men like Bush, Quayle, and Dukakis were gonna save our nation. Life seemed normal if we awoke to the same routine; and so, went the “days of our lives.” (Face-plant!)

Life seemed simpler then; but perhaps maybe it just seemed that way. Because, even then, REM had just released its Top 40 hit: “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).” Like today, we thought our world was on the brink of annihilation. And just like today, our nation placed its hopes in “the bold and the beautiful” — in pundits and politicians who, for months on end, auditioned to be the world’s “guiding light.”

Sometimes I long to go back to those days, only in part because life seemed simpler. There were fewer distractions, faith was a higher priority, and the vitriol was less hyperbolic. And just perhaps, life wasn’t as cliché as it is nowadays. Perhaps.