1995 Year

It was the Year of the Newt, according to numerous sources--a year of partisan battle, hot words and impenetrable bulletins from the Congressional Budget Office. Or it was the Season of Simpson, the almost-silent man at the end of that long table crammed with ludicrously loquacious lawyers. It was the Age of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. It was the Time of the Nonstop Talk Show.

Jan. 4: "For some reason, it's usually teenaged boys. We had a kid last year who actually played the game with an automatic pistol. So he lost."-Chief Homicide Detective Rick Swanston, of the LAPD's West Valley division on deaths caused by people playing Russian Roulette. * July 16: "This is California. There is no shortage of disasters."- Glendale attorney Dan Gruber, whose practice has swelled thanks to quake- related disputes. * Aug.

Video game buffs who want better, faster, higher-resolution play with cooler graphics will be able to buy machines that offer all that and more in 1995, a year that's shaping up as an exciting but tumultuous watershed for the industry. A horde of new game consoles will descend on the market next year, creating uncertainty and conceivably slowing overall sales as even the most avid video game players falter at the sudden range of options displacing what used to be an easy Nintendo-Sega coin toss.

It is winter again in Southern California, the start of another New Year, and across the land we look back and ask: Was it this month last year, or was only yesterday, that the Trial of the Century was the talk of the town? This is how it is here in the land of recurring Armageddon. Things run together. You lose track. O.C. and O.J., downsizing and disaster, immigration and exploitation and affirmative action and budget crises. . . . Kinda tuckers you out, doesn't it?

The U.S. economy, hammered by two government shutdowns, almost screeched to a halt at the end of last year, eking out its weakest economic growth rate since the last recession, the government reported Friday. The Commerce Department report, which adds fuel to the debate over the nation's growth potential and federal policies to promote it, shows the economy creeping forward at a 0.9% rate in the last three months of 1995.

A recovering economy and record attendance at Disneyland helped attract 38.2 million visitors to Orange County last year, a 3.1% increase over 1994, according to the annual tourist count prepared by the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau. Tourism in the county pumped an estimated $5.1 billion into the Southland economy, up 4% from the previous year. The annual tourism figure is the highest since 1989, when a record 39.5 million people visited Orange County.

Maybe we're finally getting the hang of this. Maybe we finally understand how Hollywood works. Maybe we finally can separate the real blockbusters from the real stinkers. OK, maybe we just got lucky. But whatever the reason, we picked a lot more hits for '95 than we have in previous years. Here's what we thought would be among the year's highlights: "Batman Forever," "Pocahontas," "Apollo 13," "The Bridges of Madison County," "Crimson Tide" and "Die Hard With a Vengeance."

As graduating seniors across Orange County prepare to toss their mortarboards and face the future, it's time to take a look back at the people, events and issues that helped make 1994-95 a remarkable year in county high school sports. Few prep sports fans are likely to forget the accomplishments of Mater Dei in football and boys' and girls' basketball.