Aah, the start of another school year.

For students it’s a time for fresh goals, a new leg in the journey toward boundless opportunities.

For the rest of us, it’s a time to feel a little older and out of touch — another year closer to irrelevance.

To remind us, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., annually publishes something it calls “The Mindset List.” It tells of what incoming freshmen remember in their lives and things they have no personal recollection of. It’s intended to help professors relate to the new students.

This year’s list of mindsets notes that for college freshmen:

Bert and Ernie are old enough to be their parents.

Gas has always been unleaded.

They have always had a PIN number.

Yuppies are almost as old as hippies.

Most of this year’s batch of college freshmen were born in 1989.

For those who grew up in the Mankato area, their view of the city is considerably different than for many of us.

For freshmen, Scheels is only known as an anchor store at River Hills Mall, not a small hardware store in Old Town and later Madison East.

They not only have no memory of the downtown Mankato Mall being the center of the local retail world, they can’t remember Madison East Center as the “new” retail center.

The Mall of America and River Hills Mall were there as far back as they can remember.

They don’t know Mankato had a Woolworth’s — they may not know what it even was. They don’t recall Randall Value Center, Thompson’s Country Store or Kmart.