In one Barth Gimble mentions the year 1984 and makes a contemptuous reference to presumably Orwell's book '1984'. Barth ends discussing the book quick and starts talking about the then-upcoming 1984 LA summer Olympics.

In recent postings of mine I spoke of the 1983 Newsweek cover 'The End of Mash:Will Prime time TV ever be as good again'. Interesting how the yesr 1984 turned out in real life to such a turning point as 1985 was the first fully eroded year ever in history.