Overheard someone last week talking about “a 1957 Chevy convertible,” and it got me to thinking. When 1957 is mentioned, the first thing that comes to my mind is our family’s green 1957 Chevrolet — a fine-looking car with matching pointy fins on the back of each side.
And that got me to thinking about a year-association exercise. Mention a year and think of the first thing that pops into your mind. As you might imagine, being a sportswriter for so many years, many years conjure sports memories for me, but not all. Some years bring more than one memory.
There are, without a doubt, tons of other huge events that have happened that aren’t included here. Again, this is just a sampling. It’s an exercise in word association(s) reflecting on timelines in a year-end stretch when we all tend to do – and should do – the same.
As we approach 2024 and wonder what it will bring, here are 40 “flash card” years with a particular memory or associations that year has for me.
1 AD: Birth of Christ
33 AD: Passion, crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ
1776: Birth of America
1865: Appomattox, Lincoln assassinated
1927: All-time greatest New York Yankees team, possibly the overall best
1936: Berlin Summer Olympics, Jesse Owens
1941: Pearl Harbor
1944: D-Day
1958: LSU football national champions
1959: LSU’s Billy Cannon wins Heisman Trophy
1961: Roger Maris gets 61 homers in ’61.
1962: John Glenn orbits Earth
1963: JFK assassinated
1968: MLK, RFK assassinated; Chicago Democratic Convention
1969: Apollo moon landing; Jets upset Colts in Super Bowl; ‘Miracle Mets’
1970: Tom Dempsey
1972: Mark Spitz
1973: Secretariat
1974: Hank Aaron
1975: Reds-Red Sox World Series
1976: America’s Bicentennial; Nadia Comaneci
1978: Affirmed and Alydar
1979: Seattle Slew; Pittsburgh Steelers; Pittsburgh Pirates
1981: President Reagan and Pope John Paul II survive assassination attempts
1984: Mary Lou Retton
1986: Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy; LSU basketball makes NCAA Final Four
1989: Berlin Wall comes down
1996: LSU’s Warren Morris hits 2-out homer in bottom of 9th to win College World Series
2001: 9-11
2003: LSU football national championship; Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
2004: Red Sox break 86-year World Series title drought
2007: LSU football national championship
2008: Michael Phelps
2009: Saints Super Bowl season; LSU baseball wins national championship
2015: American Pharoah
2016: Cubs end 108-year World Series title drought
2017: Trash-can banging Astros win their first World Series
2019: LSU football national champions; Joe Burrow wins Heisman
2020: Covid, one nightmare after another
2023: LSU wins NCAA championships in women’s basketball and baseball, and LSU’s Jayden Daniels wins Heisman Trophy
Happy 2024!