Two decades can seem like two hours or two lifetimes

Twenty years ago this week, ROUTE 1 was a scenic coastal highway in California (or a simplistic soccer tactic involving long kicks upfield). Much has changed in two decades, as we learn from readers who answered the following FRIDAY QUESTION:
"What were you doing 20 years ago this week?"
JIM S. -- If memory serves me right, I was mowing a huge lawn at a rental home outside Kieler, Wis., while making sure my soon-to-be 2-year-old son, Jay, stayed away from Highway 151 traffic. On my way to work in the TH sports department. I probably listened to the No. 1 hit of that week. "The Flame," by Cheap Trick.
RICK T. -- Drinking! (Glad I'm over all of that.)
BRIAN C. -- I can't guarantee that is was exactly this week, but in the summer of 1988, I was making an occasional trip to beautiful Poplar Bluff, Mo., where our company was bidding to buy the daily newspaper. We flew, hiring the American Trust & Savings Bank plane. We were the successful bidder -- but within two to three years unloaded the paper, licking our wounds financially. That same time, I was helping to plan the August 1988 resumption of a Saturday edition -- after a hiatus of more than six decades.
MIKE M -- Learning close order drill on the parade deck at MCRD San Diego.
BOB H. -- You must be kidding. I can't remember what I was doing last year!
LISA Y. -- I had just graduated high school in May, so I was probably out buying UNI Panther notebooks, pencils, clothes and bumper stickers, as well as a fan and a "hot pot" for my dorm room. Oh, the memories... of three people crammed into a dorm room and people setting off fire alarms at 4 in the morning... Go Panthers!
MIKE D. -- Our band (Anxiety) had broken up a couple weeks prior, as my lead singer brother was moving to Milwaukee and a few other members were off to college, I was gathering all of the equipment to put it up for sale. Since I was the only member of the six-piece band with a full-time job, I owned most of the stuff (mixer board, speakers, lights, etc.).
ERIK H. -- Sebastopol, Calif., was baking... I was an unemployed, recent college graduate living at home. Will Clark was smacking home runs (the Giants beat the Cardinals, 21-2, on July 9). The news from elsewhere included reports of a crippling drought in Iowa (where are those dry conditions now that we could use them?). On the night of July 10, my mom and I accompanied some family friends to a home in the Oakland hills. Following an afternoon walking around Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue, we relaxed in the hot tub at the friend's hillside home. Sitting in the hot water, we gazed at the glittering lights of the East Bay and beyond to the City.