Rihanna "S.O.S."

With school shootings, gun violence and bullying being a daily topic in our daily news feed, it made me think back to my own experiences from the 1980s and '90s. As far as bullying goes, I kept a low-profile and didn't talk to a whole lot of people so I escaped any bullying -- plus I had an older brother who had no problem beating up anyone who upset me. I don't recall anyone ever bringing one to school or anything remotely close to what's happened since Columbine. The closest thing that's happened occurred in high school when someone phoned in a bomb threat which caused our massive school to evacuate. I was a freshman at the time and wondered if this would be an recurring thing -- thankfully, it never happened again and I consider myself very fortunate.

Bruce Hornsby "Walk in the Sun"

I graduated from high school during the summer of 1995 and spent many late nights cruising around Northwest Indiana with my small but solid group of friends who would soon be heading to different colleges than me. I planned to spend my freshman year of college locally at Indiana University Northwest whereas my friends were headed to Ball State, Purdue or Indiana University in Bloomington. Since I didn't have a curfew, I tried to make the most of late nights that year and usually stayed up until the sun started to rise. My older brother worked for United Airlines that year and his alarm would sound around at the ripe time of 3:45am. One particular early morning, I remember him passing me on his walk to the bathroom while muttering, "You're still up and I'm getting up for work...what's wrong with this picture?" That unusually hot summer featured hits from TLC, Hootie & The Blowfish and Green Day on the radio, but I also remember many late nights in the car when I would come across Bruce Hornsby's "Walk in the Sun". The jazzy soft rock tune played on many Adult Contemporary radio stations during that hot summer and, like many of my high school friends, disappeared in the autumn...

Enigma "Return to Innocence"

While most teenagers spent their high school Spring break getting drunk on the beaches of south Florida, I spent my high school Spring breaks staying with my grandparents in Bradenton, Florida. Bradenton is about an hour south of Tampa and neighbors the city of Sarasota.  Since my parents didn't have cable at home during my high school years, I got my fill of music videos from MTV and VH-1 during Spring break in between countless trips to the pool and The Outback Steakhouse. One of my many memories from Spring Break 1994 featured "Return to Innocence" from the New Age band Enigma on heavy rotation at VH-1. The relaxing tune seemed destined to be the soundtrack at massage parlors, but instead managed to receive heavy radio airplay across multiple formats. The ear worm turned into a hit song in over a dozen countries.

Bryan Adams "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You"

My school bus took a circuitous route to school during my freshman year. After sweeping through my subdivision, the bus went east to a rural part of Schererville, Indiana simply to pick up one boy. This roundabout bus route went down (then) rural Kennedy Avenue and then to a gravel road between two railroad yards that led to a dilapidated house on the very outskirts of Schererville. Each morning as the school bus turned down the gravel road, a dog would appear (virtually out of nowhere) and then chase the bus while barking nonstop. A long haired guy (who some on the bus referred to as "Sanford") then would appear from the dingy home and board the bus. Most mornings that year Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" greeted "Sanford" when he boarded the bus as our bus driver always played either B96 or Z95 on the radio. Defying the odds, "Sanford" somehow knew all the words and would belt out a verse or two of the ballad each morning to drown out the sound of the barking dog...