O.J. Simpson and the Blessing of Being Generation X

The very definition of “a different time.”

Every generation has collective moments when time stops, when something so momentous happens that it’s obvious in the moment you’ll be able to recall every specific detail about it for the rest of your life. We all have these stories: Where we were, what we doing, how we reacted when the world went from being one way to suddenly, violently jolting into an entirely different place all together — a place from which we’ll never return. The Kennedy assassination is the canonical example for my parents’ generation; my mom always talks about how my grandmother was initially angry Walter Cronkite interrupted “As the World Turns,” her favorite soap opera. (Our family watched “As the World Turns” well into my adulthood; Holden and Lily, forever!) Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of RFK and MLK, the Bay of Pigs, these moments populate the entirety of American history.

I have five of these in my life. And two of them revolve around O.J. Simpson.

It is impossible to explain to someone who was not there just how all-encompassing the O.J. Simpson saga was.