Come to think of it, so have I, though probably not as long as you. Usenet was big when I finally got a good dialup service. "Good" being a relative term, as AOL was the competition and it was very slow to get a connection).
My attitude was really adjusted hard when I started back to college in the mid 90s. Took a "group IV" class (meaning, hate whitey) called "The History of Cleveland" and discovered that in the 15+ years that had passed since I graduated High School, the education world had changed drastically. I then went on to read "Atlas Shrugged", "Unintended Consequences", and found Freerepublic in the late 1990s. Needless to say, despite the occasional bump in the road, I've found a home.
Ah yes, Usenet. A wretched hive of scum and villiany!
-SB