In the depths of another challenging winter, it is tempting to seek out listening that reminds us of better times. Or if not better, just different. The series One Year, from US online magazine Slate, revisits past events and the human stories behind them. As the title suggests, each season focuses on a single year, assessing what took place, complete with the benefit of hindsight. It’s a simple format that lends itself well to audio. Presented by Josh Levin, every episode emerges as a remarkably detailed and self-contained documentary.
There have been two series so far. The first covered 1977 and recalled the day Elvis died and the race among tabloid photographers to get a picture of the King in his coffin; the singer Anita Bryant’s crusade against gay rights; and a woman from New Mexico who saw an image of Jesus in her tortilla. The current series focuses on 1995, which, for this listener, has the added piquancy of being within living memory. The opening episode, “The Man Who Didn’t Bomb Oklahoma City”, hears from Ibrahim Ahmed, a resident of Oklahoma since 1982, who tells of being detained by the FBI at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport immediately after the Oklahoma bombing which killed 168 people. He had been on his way to visit family in Jordan when officials took him to a back room for questioning.
While he was still being held, a TV news network had broadcast his name and address, prompting reporters and angry strangers to gather outside his home. Elsewhere, there were reports of abuse against members of the Oklahoman Muslim community. Ibrahim was later released and the real bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was apprehended. “Now your story is gone. It’s his story,” reflects Ahmed. “Nobody’s talking about what happened to you and your family.”
Another episode, “Fake Oxford”, hears the recollections of three Americans who won places to study at Oxford in 1995. The tuition alone cost $21,000 a year. But when they arrived in the city, their cohort, who included American, Russian and Japanese students, were taken to a grotty campus on the outskirts of town. The college to which they had been admitted was called Warnborough and, it turned out, had nothing to do with Oxford university. All the students had been victims of an elaborate scam.
There are further fascinating tales from the same year, including a scandal in reproductive medicine, the development of genetic testing in law enforcement and a soap opera launching on the nascent world wide web. In each case, we glean subtle connections between then and now, even though Levin wisely resists spelling it out. One Year doesn’t deal in nostalgia but neither does it provide stark social commentary. It allows us to join the dots, in the process telling us much about the way we live and think today.