1995: The Year that Barely Outlasted the Simpson Trial by Dave Barry Dallas Morning News, Dec. 31, 1995 If I had to pick two words to summarize 1995, those words would be 'reasonable doubt.' What I mean is, any reasonable person has to have serious doubts about whether this year should have been allowed to occur. A big reason, of course, is that this was the year when we had to endure The Trial That Lasted at Least a Century. Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining about the verdict. The problem was - and here I must search for precisely the right word to describe a very complex and subtle flaw in our current legal system - lawyers. There were at least six of Barry Scheck alone. The sheer mass of lawyers overwhelmed poor, pathetic Lance Ito, who, during the course of the trial, was buffeted by a relentless gale of lawyer-generated wind that gradually started eroding him, so that he became smaller and smaller as the months wore on, until finally he was just this nervous little fringe-bearded face poking up over the top of his desk, praying for this awful ordeal to end before he completely lost his mind. Come on, let's be honest: NOBODY came out of that trial looking good. It's hard to believe that ANYBODY is still sane after the year we've all just been through. Just in case you forgot what happened, let's take a trip back in time, starting with... JANUARY... when, as the nation rang in the new year, an estimated 25,000 newly elected Republican congresspersons, sworn to enact the Contract With America, descended on Washington DC, and began passing more than 200 major pieces of legislation before it was pointed out that they would not legally take office until Jan.4. In the Trial of the Century, the O.J. Simpson defense team produced an expert medical witness who testified that Simpson, as a result of injuries sustained during his football career, no longer contains DNA. And speaking of sports, in... FEBRUARY... the baseball strike dragged on into its seventh brutal month, forcing many desperate players to sell some of their Ferraris as they waited for emergency Red Cross shipments of gold chains. In Palm Springs, President Clinton played a historic round of golf with former presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush, resulting in 17 deaths. And speaking of clubs, in ... MARCH... President Clinton, seeking to end the baseball strike, threatened that if the owners and players did not resume serious negotiations, he would play golf with them. The governor of the state of Washington, Mike Lowry, announced that he wanted Lolita - a killer whale that has spent 25 years entertaining tourists in the Miami Seaquarium - returned to her original home in Puget Sound. This plan met with vehement opposition in Miami, where Lolita is one of the few public figures not currently under indictment. In sports, Michael Jordan announced that he would quit playing baseball and return to what made him famous in the first place: Wheaties commercials. And speaking of big business, in... APRIL... in a true consumer news item, the First National Bank of Chicago announced that it would start charging customers $3 if they wanted to do business with a human teller instead of an ATM. "This is the wave of the future," explained the bank's president, Leo Mullin, moments before what appeared to be a computer chip fell from his left nostril. Meanwhile, Lolita the Killer Whale announced that she wished to be set free and had retained the services of Johnnie Cochran. And speaking of justice, in... MAY... a major blow against crime was struck in New York's Central Park, where two city police officers - this is a true item - cited a grandmother for allowing her 4 year old grandson to urinate behind a bush. Thousands of joyful New Yorkers, at last free to leave their homes without fear, danced in the streets, where most of them were killed by taxis. And there was this absolutely true item: Phillip Morris Inc. recalled 8 billion cigarettes because the filters contained a contaminant that might cause "temporary discomfort, including eye, nose and throat irritation, dizziness, coughing and wheezing." And speaking of unbelievable but true stories, in... JUNE... the launch of the space shuttle Discovery was delayed because the external fuel tank had been damaged by woodpeckers. On the international front, the United States, angered by Japanese trade practices, threatened to impose import tariffs on Japanese luxury cars, but backed down when the Japanese threatened to make VCR's even harder to program than they already are. And speaking of luxury cars, in... JULY... professional basketball players, who make millions of dollars apiece, announced that they were thinking of going out on strike. "We have no idea why," they said, "It just seems like the professional thing to do." Abroad, France threatened to test nuclear devices in the South Pacific, but backed down at the last minute when the United States threatened to retaliate by executing Jerry Lewis. And speaking of movie stars, in... AUGUST... Kevin Costner finally came out with his long-awaited, spectacularly expensive motion picture WATERWORLD, which is set in the future, after some kind of horrible calamity has struck the Earth wiping out all traces of acting ability. At the Citadel - the South Carolina military academy where courageous specimens of Southern manhood receive the rigorous training and character development they need to be able to fight any enemy, meet any challenge and face any danger - many courageous manhood specimens became extremely upset when they had to go to school with - yikes! - a GIRL! And speaking of harassment, in... SEPTEMBER... a beleaguered Bob Packwood, finally throwing in the towel, resigned from the U.S. Senate to apply for a job as a waiter at Hooter's. On the educational front - this is a true item - a San Bernadino, Calif. off duty police officer accidentally shot a hole in the wall of an elementary school classroom where he was giving a presentation on gun safety. Unfortunately, the bullet, after passing through the wall, did not hit Mark Fuhrman. Speaking of whom, in... OCTOBER... O.J. Simpson, a free man again, began his relentless quest to find the real killers, taking his search to the fairways as well as the greens, leaving no divot unturned. The voters of Quebec went to the polls and, in a vote with deep significance for Canada's future, elected Colin Powell prime minister. And speaking of nations in turmoil, in... NOVEMBER... Congress and President Clinton were unable to agree on a budget, resulting in a shutdown of the federal government. The president announced that he was sending home 800,000 "non-essential" federal employees. Al Gore was halfway to Tennessee before he found out that this did not include him. Elsewhere in the media, in what some critics charge was undue influence by the tobacco industry, the respected TV news show 60 MINUTES reported that cigarettes "cure acne AND baldness". And speaking of good news, in... DECEMBER... grateful taxpayers learned that over the past 20 years, the CIA has spent some $20 million employing psychics to help gather intelligence. Although the psychics failed to foretell the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were credited by high level intelligence officials with helping field agents locate "at least six" lost sets of car keys. Anyway, as 1995 draws to a close, we need to remember that, despite these stories, it was not a total waste of a year. There WERE some positive developments. For example...let's see...OK, I thought of one: Roseanne and Tom Arnold did not get back together. And I'm sure there were many other happy developments, including some, I hope, that involved you.