The enduring, important role of ‘keepsakes’
We think of them as “keepsake editions.”
They describe events of historic moment, good and bad. They provide a vivid reminder in a close, personal way of how we felt — and of what life in our communities and our world was like — on dramatic dates.
We expect opportunities for them to be rare, at least years apart. This month we had two in the space of barely more than a week — the assassination attempt on Donald Trump of July 13 and the withdrawal from his bid for re-election by Joe Biden on the 21st. The enormity of such events says much about our times. Nothing depicts them in the context of those times like the local newspaper.
Of course, broadcast outlets can and do record history in important ways unique to them, but they are not easily stored in the attic nor can they provide the broad snapshot of a society seen in a day’s edition of the newspaper.
The keepsake of the century so far must be the editions of Sept. 12, 2001, reporting the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. A telling irony of this edition — in the Daily Herald, at least, as well as in newspapers across the country — is that it includes very little news in the first two sections other than stories and pictures related to the attacks. That departure alone says much about the impact the assaults had on our local and national psyche. There was little other news, because there was almost nothing else we could talk about or think about at the time.
Other celebrated dates provide a more contextual look at our culture.
Someday years from now, for instance, you may get a moment’s endorphin rush when you pull out of your attic your copy of the Monday, Jan. 22, 2007, edition of the Daily Herald announcing that year’s Super Bowl would be “Windy vs. Indy.” But you may also find yourself drawn to the story of then-Harper College President Robert Brueder pushing to allow the community college to offer four-year degrees. Or you may turn inside to note that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (remember him?) was preparing for a run for U.S. president, that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden feared China was starting a space arms race or that the nation’s newly sworn-in, first female U.S. speaker of the House — Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California — had quickly “rammed six major bills through the House at breakneck speed.”
Or, maybe you’ll run across your yellowed Sunday paper of Dec. 20, 1998, with just two words spread across the entire width of the front page declaring the news of the day: “Clinton impeached.” If you do, you will no doubt note numerous ironies in another story on the page announcing the resignation of House Speaker Bob Livingston because of a sex scandal and the likely elevation of his successor — U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, whose eight-year record in that post would later be tarnished by sex charges that landed him in prison. But you’ll also note such cultural touchpoints as a review of an alternative-music concert lineup ranging from Garbage to the Goo Goo Dolls and a feature on events and promotions at suburban shopping malls.
Maybe you’ll find similar surprises if you kept your Friday, Dec. 31, 1999, or Saturday, Jan. 1, 2000, “Crossing Centuries” editions. If you’re this kind of pack rat, you may delight at the Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005, edition of the White Sox World Series championship, your Nov. 3, 2016, edition of the Chicago Cubs World Series, your several editions of the three Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup championships in the 2010s and of the six Chicago Bulls NBA championships in the 1990s. You surely will run across your newspaper copies of Barack Obama’s historic election on Nov. 4, 2008, as the first African American president, then both impeachments of President Donald Trump in December 2019 and January 2021, and no doubt many other significant dates in history.
What a time you’ll have.
One hopes, anyway. My wife insists that the six crates of such editions moldering overhead at our house are little more than another reason for our kids to hate us when they have to clean out our house after we’ve passed on. Maybe. But I hope they’ll at least spend some time poring through all those “keepsakes.” They will find they are more than just memories. They are a picture of history you can get almost no other way.
And I wonder what, in their electronic age, they will have to compare.
• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on X at @JimSlusher. His coming book, “To Nudge The World: Conversations, Community and the Role of the Local Newspaper” is available for pre-order from Eckhartz Press at eckhartzpress.com.