1995. First brand new computer since our CoCo2.

A close friend had a computer first, and had signed up with AOL, which, although was technically on the Internet, actually was a protected front-end "house" with links to it's own movie sites, chat rooms, recipes, etc. She'd never ventured through the "door" labeled "Internet".

I got my computer, learned the ins and outs of the brand-new Windows 95, then signed up with a local ISP.

Well! There was no way my friend was going to allow me to beat her through that door to the World Wide Web! She made the leap ONE DAY before my line went active.

So now we had email! I wrote her a message, and immediately phoned her to tell her I'd sent her an email. She hung up, logged on, got my message, logged off and phoned me to say she'd received my message and was now going to send me a message. This went on, back and forth, all day. My son, about 16 at the time finally put an end to it when he pointed out the pointlessness of our incessant phone calls to advise we'd sent or received messages. We were just kind of excited at this amazing technology.

And yes...I miss Usenet. It's still there, but hardly worth using. Spam. Spam. Spam. Too bad.