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The newspaper as a magical looking glass into history

Stacked safely away in my attic are some keepsakes I rarely look at but could never part with.

There is the Nov. 3, 2016, edition of the Daily Herald and several other newspapers describing the euphoria after the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. I'm not a Cubs fan, but history is history.

Another is the Oct. 27, 2005, edition of the Daily Herald and other Chicago newspapers describing the euphoria after the Chicago White Sox won the World Series. I did care about that one. Sadly, it now feels like ancient history.

Another is the Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008, edition of the Daily Herald and other newspapers describing the euphoria after Barack Obama was elected America's first African-American president. Those were different times. But, as I said, it's history.

And there are many more - not all euphoric, some patently tragic. For instance, the Sept. 12, 2001, edition of the Daily Herald and other newspapers the day after the world changed; the March 30, 1981, edition of the afternoon Saginaw News, where I worked when President Ronald Reagan was shot; the Dec. 9, 1980, Saginaw News describing the assassination of John Lennon; the Jan. 28, 1986, edition reporting on the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle; the Aug. 17, 1977, edition of the Sterling-Rock Falls Gazette's report on the death of Elvis Presley, which was not only national history but a personal memory, as it was among the first newspaper front pages I designed as a professional journalist. (It was - it is pertinent to note - a nine-column format, all black and white, in original-width broadsheet, which was about four-feet across when fully opened to read the inside pages.)

There is a point to all this reminiscence. It's something I've been thinking about as the world prepares to commemorate the day when the lunar module Eagle touched down on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969.

It is this: What do people who rely on the internet for their news these days use as a tangible connection to the events that shape their world and their lives?

I suppose that when the first human walks on Mars, such people could print out the home page of their favorite news source at some point during that day and stuff that in a manila folder, but that can never be as revealing as the musty, yellowing pages of an entire newspaper on the day when "The king is dead" carried the top of the front page in bold 60-point type over a huge, black-and-white picture of one of the icons of the century.

Sadly, I hadn't yet begun accumulating historic front pages when, as a 16-year-old about to enter his senior year of high school, I watched television with my family to see Neil Armstrong take his giant, world-changing, Cold War-victory step for mankind, and then read about it the next day in the Peoria Journal Star. So, unfortunately, for that event, I have to rely entirely on my increasingly feeble powers of recollection to relive the sensations of that night and place them fully in the context of their time, when various items would have focused on Vietnam War protests, bell-bottom jeans, the Cubs' relentless march toward a National League championship (oops!) or the latest sales downtown at Bergner's, Sears and J.C. Penney.

For all those other historic events I mentioned and more, I can be transported immediately to the sights, sounds, worries, hopes and arguments of the moment whenever I pick up one of those distant remnants of living history. It's like looking at some magical window into the past.

Perhaps, many of you have similar stories to tell. Perhaps you've saved newspapers from the days your children were born. Maybe you have clippings pasted into scrapbooks of athletic achievements, music competitions and countless important events in your life and the life of your family.

The newspaper is often referred to as the rough draft of history. The phrase generally applies to the notion that one is reading history as it is being made, but it's also true that the newspaper is a tangible fragment of history, with a unique value that goes beyond the day it publishes.

As we prepare to commemorate one of the most important newspaper days in history, that seems to me something worth reflection. Sure, it's a bit like hoary nostalgia to lament the loss of something that's a function of the natural passing of time. But I think we will lose a sensation that cannot be replaced if there someday are no printed daily newspapers.

And I do wish I had a copy of that July 21, 1969, Peoria Journal Star gathering dust in my attic.

Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is deputy managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on Twitter at @JimSlusher.

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