No More Fast Times At Ridgemont High

Washington Monthly, Jan, 2001 by Michael Schaffer

True enough. In fact, it never was American Graffiti--and even if it had been, in a country where school for too many people is remembered as an education mill rather than a stimulating environment, there's no reason to mourn the passing of a time when everyone went through oversized, broadly-focused schools. There was also no reason to mourn the passing of an era when there were just three TV networks to watch, or one color of car to drive. Or, say, when young men's lives were interrupted by a draft. But when that era faded, the nation gained a little more freedom and lost a little piece of common ground in the process--the kind of thing that sells movies, and also the kind of thing that helps, in dribs and drabs, to make us a country.

MICHAEL SCHAFFER is an associate editor at U.S. News & World Report.