If you know only the Michael Bolton version, I'll just assume you are young and fell in with some bad company.

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Warm-up question: Why is it that people who have traveled the least tend to have the loudest know-it-all opinions about other parts of the country?
So I'm walking back to the paper from Auntie's.
Up ahead, maybe a block away, I see a woman fall to the sidewalk. She is right in front of what used to be the Washington Mutual building on the south side of Main. What is it now, the Chase building?
Before I can even begin to speculate, a man who had been walking nearby scurries to check on her.
By the time I get closer, a few facts become apparent. The woman looks to be in her 40s or 50s. She had been trying to maneuver several cases of water bottles stacked on a two-wheeler. And she seems to be OK.
After making sure she was all right and helping her up, the man who checked on her starts heading my way.
“Well done,” I say as we pass.
He thanks me and smiles.
As often happens to me, I know his face but can't place him.
“Forget about it,” I imagine someone saying, “Chinatown” style. “It's Spokane.”
Did you see that story in the Today section?
Did it surprise you in the least? Of course, not.
What would have been amazing is if they hadn't found it in public pools.
When you first heard of the Civil War era underground railroad, did you think it was some sort of big subway system?
A woman I know casually was telling me about her plans to retire in a few months.
I asked her if she had picked an exact last day. She said she hoped her birthday, Sept. 4, would be her final day at work.
I told her that was my late father's birthday. She then volunteered that a couple of siblings and others in her extended family also had birthdays in September, the ninth month.
“It gets cold in Minnesota,” she said.

Yes, there is a reference to this. But there is no way on God's green Earth you could guess the context.
When was the heyday?
Certainly technology has made arguments of that nature less of a spectator sport.
I'll say that peaked in 1987.