December of 1991. I got a VAX account at IU. (all students could have one. IU was one of the few schools where everyone could have email and it wasn't just limited to computer science students.) I still miss the VAX system at times...VAXphone and BITNET were loads of fun! I logged onto QuartzBBS and ISCABBS soon after. My life was never the same after that.
My mom got Internet access shortly thereafter. (she taught at the Illinois Mathematics & Science Academy at the time) In the summer of 1992 we got AOL but I couldn't get to the rest of Internet from there. I remember driving 40 minutes to her school every so often during that summer to check my IU email. heh. We got actual Internet access at home from a local company in the summer of 1995.