Taking a trip in a newsprint time machine
PRESIDENT SLAIN.”
The headline, as black as the national mood, spanned the top of the Spokane Daily Chronicle’s front page on Nov. 22, 1963.
It was 42 years ago today.
As did every other media outlet, Spokane’s now-gone afternoon newspaper helped spread the word of the horrible event that forever changed America.
“President John F. Kennedy, thirty-sixth President of the United States, was shot to death today by a hidden assassin armed with a high-powered rifle,” stated the Associated Press story with the Dallas dateline.
I hadn’t laid eyes on that historic Empire Edition of the Chronicle since it arrived at the modest South Hill home I grew up in. I was 12 years old the day bullets stole the president’s life and broke our hearts.
Then last month an old friend handed me a pristine although slightly yellowed copy he had been saving all these years.
He gave it to be auctioned for charity at my “Filet of Clark” roast at The Davenport Hotel. But the roasting ran long, alas. The auction had to be canceled.
And so I carried the donation home with the best intentions to give it back. Honest.
Thoughts of the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination prompted me to take out the newspaper and start reading.
And reading …
It was like entering a newsprint time machine. The paper transported me back not only to one of the darkest events in American history, but also to the Spokane of my youth.
Here are few memory-triggering snapshots circa Nov. 22, 1963.
“I’ve always pegged my father as a cheapskate because he wouldn’t buy a color TV set until after I was in college.
Reading the Chronicle put things in perspective.
“Why miss seeing the big TV shows in color?” asks an ad hawking New Vista RCA Victor sets – for $625 a pop. Depending on the inflation table, that television set in today’s money would cost between $3,757 and $7,239.
Sorry, Dad.
“Speaking of TV, the eyes of the nation were glued all day and evening to the somber reports on the assassination from Walter Cronkite on CBS or the famed NBC team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.
But on a normal Friday night, has there ever been a better prime time television lineup than what was offered in 1963? From 7:30 to 11 p.m., boob tube addicts can watch: “77 Sunset Strip,” “Route 66,” “Twilight Zone,” and then “Alfred Hitchcock.”
“A page 7 photograph shows Spokane gardener Gus Krell proudly holding a zucchini slightly smaller than a Pontiac. “The biggest rutabaga he grew this year weighed 30 pounds,” boasts the caption.
“Advice columnist Ann Landers dispenses wisdom that made her the Oprah of her day.
“DEAR ROBBED,” she responds, “Give the last of the big spenders his hamsters back – before you have eight.”
“Duane Morrow and Old Hickory Boys are billed at Sandy’s Tavern on Sprague.
Never heard of them, but you’ve gotta love the name.
“”Cougars Eye First Win Over Huskies Since ‘58,” reads the sports page headline. Some things never change.
“Amazing. The Family Circus cartoon is as lame then as it is today.
“Spokane moviegoers can go to “Take Her, She’s Mine,” starring James Stewart and Sandra Dee at our illustrious Fox Theater or “Those Naughty Nude Models” at the far seedier El Rey.
“Spokane Mayor Neal R. Fosseen is not involved in a sex scandal or a recall. According to a news story, the mayor’s concern of the day is traffic flow created by a proposed new City Hall at Washington and Riverside.
“Santa Claus is hosting a Christmas party for kids all day Saturday at The Crescent department store. Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw and local TV celebrities Capt. Cy and Miss Florence will join the jolly fat man.
“One of the Kennedy articles indicates that, just two months prior to his death in Dallas, the president visited the Hanford Atomic Works to dedicate a nuclear-powered electrical facility. “Smiling and in good spirits, the President greeted a crowd of more than 30,000 persons,” the story states.
Smiling and in good spirits. That’s the way we all should remember him.