1970s summer comics nostalgia with Thing and Vision, Episode X

"Ah ... Star Wars!
Nothing but Star Wars!
Give me those Star Wars.
Don't let them end!
Ah ... Star Wars!
If they should bar wars...
Please let these Star Wars...
Stay!"
— Nick Winters, singing the iconic John Williams theme
I must apologize, because there have been some production delays and cost overruns on Episode X of Papergreat's look back at cool stuff in the May 1978 issue of "Marvel Two-in-One." But perhaps the wait was worth it. Today we have two full-page Star Wars-themed advertisements from that issue, for you to enjoy in all their glory.

First up is the above advertisement for the "Terrestrial chapter" of the Official Star Wars™ Fan Club. It's a little hard to take them credibly, though, when they think the R2-D2 sounds can be written out as Bleep-Zhwit-Pling-A-Pling-A-Flizz-Bloop. He wasn't an Alka-Seltzer! That's some droid translation weak sauce right there.

As you might imagine, given the ongoing popularity of the Luke-and-Vader-and-Rey universe, there is a long history associated with official and unofficial Star Wars fan organizations. In just skimming the surface of the "Official Star Wars Fan Club" in a Google search, I found an information and photo-filled post by Mark Newbold on starwars.com, this page on Fanlore.org, and this PDF copy of Volume 1, No. 2 of the club's newsletter (from 1978, via JediTempleArchives.com), which delves into one of the early Star Wars controversies — why didn't Chewbacca receive a medal from Princess Leia.

Per this advertisement, the Beverly Hills-based fan club offered the following membership perks 38 years ago: a poster, an iron-on T-shirt decal, a jacket patch, a Star Wars book cover, a newsletter, a membership card and much more. (But not a free set of Ginsu knives.)

All this came at a cost of $5 in the Jimmy Carter era, which would be the equivalent of about $18 today.

While everything about the first advertisement had trademarks and copyrights and language about OFFICIAL merchandise, the above page, hawking Heroes World Superhero Merchandise from Dover, New Jersey, is somewhat the opposite. The text at the top of the page of the page screams DARTH VADER LIVES. But, after that, there are some curious spellings that make me wonder if they were sad attempts to skirt copyright issues. (Also, that's a nice hoodie Darth Vader is sporting.)

The sale items included a Lord Darth Vadar [sic] costume for $4.69, plus shipping, and a battery-powered "SST Lazar Sword" for $7.95, plus shipping. The "lazar sword" is described this way: "Turn the switch and the giant 36 inch laser lights a glowing blue or red — it's all yours and thoroughly tested — safe! The soft plastic tube is battery-operated and with light filter!" (Did SST stand for anything, by the way?)

Other items available included Star Wars books, artwork and blueprints.

Epilogue: In the mid 1990s, Heroes World and Marvel joined forces for a comic-book distribution deal that proved disastrous for the entirety of the industry and spelled doom for many smaller comics stores. In today's robust era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all its associated merchandise (including a reborn comics market), it's interesting to note that the comics industry was nearly dead in the late 1990s, mostly of self-inflicted wounds.

Vintage advertising card featuring a monkey and a cat (Post #2,000)

It looks like these beleaguered folks are having a Case of the Mondays.
(Or is that a Case of the Monkeys?)

This vintage advertising trade card, which is 4¾ inches wide and in poor shape, is titled "The Monkey and the Cat's Paw" and features two people entering a room to discover Major Shenanigans involving a monkey, a cat, a sewing machine and a basket. Assuming they were aware that they had a monkey and a cat living together in their house, I don't know why it would surprise them that this kind of thing happens. Monkeys and cats can co-exist peacefully sometimes, but certainly not always.

Leavitt & Brant is the company name that's printed on the front of the card. It was located at 409 Washington Street in Boston, Massachusetts.

The back of the card is a mess, thanks to glue and tearing and other Crimes Against Ephemera. It does mention that medals have been awarded to Mrs. B.A. Stearns for an "Improved System of Dress Cutting." So belated congratulations to her for that.

"Ladies" who want to learn more about Mrs. Stearns' method and see the wonders offered by the New Home Sewing Machine Company¹ are invited to visit the 409 Washington Street location.

As a final aside, I'm not sure whether the card's title — "The Monkey and the Cat's Paw" — is related to the Jean de La Fontaine fable "The Monkey and the Cat," but the history of the latter makes for an interesting read, if you have your own Case of the Mondays and are seeking something interesting on Wikipedia.

Note
This is the 2,000th Papergreat post. (For a useless apples-and-oranges comparison, only 278 Major League Baseball players have ever achieved the 2,000-hit mark.) This adventure started back on November 25, 2010, and has featured a lot of postcards, book covers, chickens, and more over the years. So thanks for reading! If you're interested in where the name Papergreat came from, read about it here. If you want a sampling of some of the posts that I had the most fun with and am proudest of, check out the Best of Papergreat label. And if you had to read or share just one post to convey the idea of what Papergreat is about, I'd recommend "Eight awesome things you'll never find inside e-books."

Footnote
1. The New Home Sewing Machine Company was also mentioned in this November 2014 post.

Cows, ice cream, a postcard and some history that needs filled in

This creased postcard from Borden was meant for retailers in southcentral Pennsylvania and northern Maryland. There is no date anywhere, but we can do a little triangulation as we go and narrow it down a bit.

The front of the card shows a display area featuring cows Elsie and Elmer and their child Beauregard. The iconic Elsie the Cow was launched into fame as Borden's mascot 80 years ago, in 1936.¹ Her mate, Elmer the Bull, arrived in 1940 and the advertising gurus concocted their first offspring, Beulah and Beauregard, in 1948. So we know that this postcard is from 1948 or after, though it's interesting that Beulah is absent.

The front of the card touts three locations of Borden's Ice Cream parlors — on 210 Lafayette Street in York, 2429 Derry Street in Harrisburg and Center Street in Hagerstown, Maryland. There was once an entire chain of Borden's parlors. Now, just one remains. It's the privately owned Borden's Ice Cream Shoppe in Lafayette, Louisiana.² It opened in 1940 and is still going strong. One of its employees, Ella Meaux, has worked there since 1961!

Lauren Bassart of The Constant Rambler visited the shoppe in 2015, and the place gets great reviews on TripAdvisor, which is no surprise. Because ice cream.

But we digress. It would be interesting to hear memories of the Borden's Ice Cream locations in York, Harrisburg and Hagerstown and to learn what happened to those parlors. Please share information in the comments section if you have it.

Let's turn now to the back of the postcard...

First up, we have a fine print that describes the traveling display, pictured on the front, that allowed customers to meet live cows representing Elsie and family in person. I'd love to learn more about the history of this display and the types of locations where it was set up. My guess would be state and county fairs. Here's the description of the display:

"Elmer is at the left, Elsie at right, and young Beauregard in his playpen. Elsie's dressing table, made of barrels, has milk bottle lamps and her toiletries include Tail Wave Set, Henna Fur Glaze and Meadow Mud Pack. Elmer's chair is made of actual wheels with barrel staves for rockers. The sampler over the mantel, Elsie did when she was just a heifer. The candle sticks are half ears of corn and the bed ladders have scythe-handles for supports. Books in the breakfront include The Farmer With Cold Hands, Animal Husbandry and Wivery, and Bulliver's Travels. Elsie's dressing table mirror is a large frying pan and the floor lamp is an old churn."

This postcard was canceled in York, Pennsylvania and mailed with a 1½-cent Martha Washington stamp. That stamp (Scott 805) was first issued in May 1938. But these Presidential Issue stamps were in continuous production and issue through the mid 1950s.

That brings us to the final piece of the puzzle on this postcard (which is also touting Borden's three-flavor sherbet pint package). The typed address tells us that the card was mailed to Getz's General Store, F.L. Getz, Freeland, Maryland.³

Our best information about this store comes from the obituary for Mary Ellen Getz, who died on September 12, 2006, at age 97. Her husband was Francis Lee Getz Sr., who would be the F.L. Getz that this postcard was addressed to. Here's an excerpt from the obituary:

"She and her husband operated the former Getz's General Store at Sunset View in Freeland, Md., from 1951 to 1981, in addition to farming Oakland Farm. ... She enjoyed nature, especially birds, as well as history, reading and cooking shows. Her longevity was often attributed to her knowledge of natural medicine."

That's it. One sentence about a community's general store, which was in business for 30 years. Does anyone know or remember more? Please share.

Footnotes
1. Borden still exists, though it is no longer its own company. If I have this straight: The Borden brand is owned and operated by Eagle Family Foods Incorporated, which is itself a fully owned subsidiary of The J.M. Smucker Company, which sells about half of everything in your pantry and fridge.
2. They're open until 10 p.m. Eastern tonight, if you're anywhere near Lafayette, Louisiana, and have a hankering for ice cream.
3. Freeland is an unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland.

1,001 stories through the archway

What adventures and discoveries happen when you walk through the stone archway pictured in this old German postcard?

The answer could be anything.

I chose to write about this image and its storytelling possibilities even before I knew what Ein Blütentraum meant. It translates, quite wonderfully, to something along the lines of "Blossom Dream" or "Flower Dream" or "Beautiful Daydream."

What's beyond the portal?

• A time slip into the medieval era?
• An alien planet?
• A garden filled with storytellers from across the centuries?
• A land where all the creatures of urban legend and folklore exist?
• Earth as it would be without humans?
• A town populated by super-intelligent dwarf giraffes?
• A forest full of perplexed people who walked through the archway and can't get back?

The possibilities are only limited by our imaginations, which should never have limits. Show this postcard image to your child or grandchild and ask them what they think is on the other side of the archway. Encourage imagination and dreaming and crazy/silly/outlandish ideas.

I'm planning — soon, but no launch date yet — to start a new website called Create-A-Tale, which will use images such today's post, this one and this one and this one to hopefully serve as a jumping-off point for kids to dream up, create and share their stories and ideas.

"A Dream" by Ruth Manning-Sanders

Peaceful autumnal Postcrossing card from Russia

This card came via Postcrossing user Galina, who lives in northern Russia in the Murmansk Oblast¹, which borders Finland and Norway. The quiet autumn scene is titled "Road to Nowhere," which sounds perfect.² The credited photographer is Nikita Gladkiy.

Want more? Here's a rundown of some past autumnal-themed posts:

• Postcard of "Autumn Woods" by American artist George Inness
• Saturday's postcards: Autumn scenes from Pavlovsk Park in Russia
• Old postcard: "Farben-Aufnahme direkt nach der Natur"
• Vintage autumn postcard: Portuguese Point in Missouri
• Saturday's postcard: Autumn in Nebraska and The Mite Society
• Advertising card: Autumn greetings from Rices Landing
• American Autumn (a photo essay)

Footnotes
1. Here are some "Today I Learned..." facts about Murmansk Oblast (Мурманская область): (1) It resides almost entirely within the Arctic Circle; (2) It used to have a much higher percentage of Saami residents, but most of them resettled in Finland following the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947; (3) It is home to Severomorsk, which serves as the base for Russian Northern Fleet; (4) Animals that can be found there include reindeer, red and arctic foxes, wolverines, moose, otters, lynx, and numerous types of seals.
2. Unless that's where you find The Man from Nowhere.

Tattered old dust jacket featuring farmyard chickens

For our second chicken-themed post in a row, here's the front of the poor-condition dust jacket that accompanies a hardcover of Rose, Robin and May by M.E. Drewsen. The book's subtitle is "A Story of Country Life." There is no publication date listed inside, but we know this one was published by Pickering & Inglis Ltd. of London, and that it was part of the Sunshine Series.¹ An internet search reveals that several editions of this book were published between the late 1930s and late 1950s. My guess would be that this particular edition came after World War II.

There is a bookseller label for Loizeaux Bros. of New York City on the inside front cover, and this volume has clearly been through numerous sellers' hands over the decades. There are two second-hand prices written on the first page; one for 15 cents and one for 20 dollars.

According to the book's description on the inside portion of the dust jacket, it involves a trio of orphans (the girls from the title) who find themselves at Honeysuckle Farm, where life is pleasant but the pleasantries are often interrupted by Aunt Sarah and her temper. "Town boys and Girls will enjoy this tale, country ones will appreciate it," states the text.

I can't find much about author Drewsen. Some of his/her other titles included Gracie and Grant, Hazel Glen, Henrik's Forest Home, Fisher Dan and His Little Friend, and Neddie Gardner. The only review I can find for any of Drewsen's works is this positive Goodreads review of Henrik's Forest Home, which was posted one year ago:

"A sweet and simple story about four Danish children living in a forest. There's the sturdy orphan Henrik, his frail innocent cousin Marie, her rambunctious brother Carl, and the cheeky rich girl, Laura, visiting for the summer. To tell you the truth, not too much happens in the story. There is a mystery to solve, and Marie's health becomes quite dire. But the plot is less important than time spent with these delightful children, their beautiful world and their simple faith. This would make a delightful bedtime book to read aloud to children. It's set in the early nineteen hundreds, and was written some time before 1948 as that's when my Dad received it as a Sunday School present. Despite this, it would be very accessible for modern readers."

Update!
The author is female. Her full name was Mary Emma Drewsen. Inexpensive modern editions of some of her works are available from Bible Truth Publishers.

Footnote
1. The Sunshine Series, quite oddly, also included The Dullest Boy and Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Rabbits and chickens help us get back on track

Sorry, it's been a busy few autumn days. To get us back in the flow, here's a Victorian advertising trade card featuring a young girl, a toddler, caged bunny rabbits and some yard chickens with their chicks.

(Coincidentally — or perhaps not coincidentally, since I chose this card — I spent yesterday afternoon at the York Fair¹ with Sarah, and our first job was to work as volunteers at the York County 4-H Farm Animal Learning Center. Among the animals we were letting the public get to know were rabbits, chickens, pigs, goats, alpacas, ducklings, guinea pigs and a desperately needy and loudly bleating lamb named Silly.)

This card measures 2⅞ inches by 4-7/16 inches. (I was feeling like being uber-precise.) A good chunk of the back side is gone, because it was glued into a long-ago someone's long-ago album. But can tell you that it's advertising New Process Starch from Firmenich Mfg. Co. of Peoria, Illinois, and Marshalltown, Iowa.

I'm sure you're just here for the cute vintage illustration of the kids with the farm animals, but here's more than you'd ever want to know about Firmenich, courtesy of an excerpt from 1887's Half-century's Progress of the City of Chicago: The City's Leading Manufacturers and Merchants:

"A successful and representative house in Chicago engaged in the manufacture of table syrup, starch and glucose is that of the reliable Firmenich Manufacturing Co., whose offices are located at No. 278 Michigan street. The works of the company, which are admirably equipped with all the latest improved apparatus and appliances, are at Peoria, Illinois, and Marshalltown, Iowa. This company was duly incorporated in 1884 under the laws of Illinois with ample capital, since which period it has built up a liberal and influential patronage in the middle, west and north-western states."

The short section on Firmenich continues with such ebullient praise that I think it was simply written by the company itself and submitted to the book's editors.

Footnote
1. Here's a picture taken yesterday from one of the York Fair Ferris wheels. It's too high up to see the chickens in any detail.

9/11

In September 2011, I wrote a piece for my then-employer, the York Daily Record/Sunday News, to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11. In less than five years, it vanished from the Internet.

I've written before about how easily we can lose the history we trust to the "safety" of cyberspace. This time, I was able to cyber-salvage my column, so I'm re-posting it today for the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

I'm also making a hard copy.

Going back to the source on 9/11/01
By CHRIS OTTO
Daily Record/Sunday News

York, PA -

I haven't opened the manila envelope many times in the past 10 years. That's kind of how it works when you're a well-organized packrat. The stuff gets sorted, filed away and forgotten.

Not entirely forgotten, of course.

On the front of this envelope is written, simply, "Sept. 11, 2001."

The contents include some of the papers that were received and generated in the office of the York Daily Record -- we weren't the Daily Record/Sunday News until 2004 -- on that horrible day 10 years ago.

I also dug up -- in the computer forensics sense of the term -- some long emails that I crafted to friends and family a few days after 9/11, describing life in our newsroom on the day that came to define so much of the 10 years that followed.

Having these original sources and emails is a good thing, historians will say. And I'd agree. Memories will fade or become confused. Others countless original documents will be lost or destroyed.

But I'll hold onto the pieces of paper from that day and the printouts of the digital conversations I held with loved ones in the days following 9/11.

They help to paint a far more accurate and eloquent picture of what happened in the sports department of a newsroom in southcentral Pennsylvania than anything fresh that I might write, 120 months after the fact.

Here are some excerpts from those letters and documents...

* * *From my emails...

"I am just now getting a chance to sit down and collect my thoughts. ... As I imagine has been the case with many of you, I have scarcely had a chance to reflect on the meaning of all of this, to sort through my emotions or even to grieve.

"And grieve is certainly something we all need to give ourselves a chance to do. In the middle of the 15-hour shift I worked at the York Daily Record on Tuesday, there were moments toward the end of the night when I just wanted to find a quiet corner and shed some tears.

"No doubt my role as a member of the media gave me a different perspective on Tuesday's events. This was all business for us. It had to be. From the first reports of the attacks around 9 a.m., we had approximately 14 hours to put out perhaps the most comprehensive special report in our newspaper's history. There was no time to do anything but work. I guess, in a way, that necessary mobilization was cathartic. Everybody's immediate instinct was to do something to help. So many thousands of people across the country went to blood donation centers that afternoon. Our way of helping was compiling and relaying all the latest information to York County, both on our Web site and in Wednesday morning's special edition."

* * *My work day began early on Sept. 11, 2001.

Typically, I would have still be sound asleep when the first plan struck the World Trade Center. But I had been invited to York City Hall for a sports-related news conference.

The news release had stated:

"The first ever semi professional basketball team, 'The York City Noise,' in conjunction with the Women's American Basketball Association (WABA) would like to announce the launching of this women's team. The board of directors invites you to attend a press conference on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at 10:00 AM on the steps of the York City Hall (50 W. King St.)."

* * *From my emails...

"I was listening to pop music on the radio during the 15-minute drive to work, and then, after one song, the DJ cut in and announced that it was confirmed that jetliners had crashed into both of the Twin Towers in NYC, apparently the work of terrorists. ... I was in the office at 9:30 and one of my sportswriters, Eduardo Encina, was already there because he was supposed to be listening to Joe Paterno's teleconference in advance of Thursday's Penn State-Virginia game.

"Of course, he was already off the telephone and we watched CNN, incredulous, as the events kept unfolding and more reports kept piling on top of each other: The Pentagon had been hit by a plane, the National Mall was on fire, a plane had crashed near Pittsburgh, a car bomb had gone off at the state department, two other planes had strayed from their flight plans and were unaccounted for. ... Even though, thankfully, some of those reports turned out to be untrue, that first barrage of reports from across the Northeast was probably the most scared and shaken I'd ever been. It seemed the entire country was under attack and there was no way to predict when it would end.

"Stupidly (in retrospect), I decided to walk the one block to City Hall at 9:55 a.m. to see what the basketball press conference was all about it. (Maybe it was my attempt to delude myself that it was going to be 'business as usual' for the sports section on this day.) ... The organizers (Vilma Garcia-Jones and Deitra Muldow) said it was going to be a couple minutes before things got started, so I sat on a bench in the lobby. Five minutes passed and I was wondering what the heck I was doing there when so much obviously needed to be done.

"A woman came out of one of the side offices and said to another woman, 'You won't believe this, it just collapsed.' ... With a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, I thought to myself, 'WHAT collapsed?' Part of me knew exactly what she was talking about, but I couldn't wrap my mind around the reality that a 110-story skyscraper could just tumble to the ground.

"After waiting just a couple more minutes, I went over the basketball folks and told them that, in light of the events, they'd probably have to postpone their announcement. They readily agreed, and I went back to the Daily Record."

* * *As the morning and early afternoon went on, faxes poured into the newsroom. Some of them were for the sports department.

One of the first came from the Baltimore Orioles. Across the top, it read "ORIOLES GAME POSTPONED."

The most chilling paragraph from that Orioles news release, in retrospect, stated: "To comply with Federal and State initiatives to keep phone lines free, FANS and MEDIA are asked not to call the Orioles offices today. The Orioles will provide further information when it becomes available."

The newsroom also received faxes from the Baltimore Ravens ("In light of today's devastating and horrific events, the Ravens will make no announcements today regarding our roster. To help limit the use of phones, we will close our offices for the rest of the day. FYI: Carnell Lake flew to Baltimore last night and passed his physical this morning.") and York College ("Due to the tragic events in New York and Washington, York College has postponed the two athletic events that were scheduled for today. ... The York College athletic department wishes to relay their sympathy and best wishes to the families that have been touched by this act of terrorism.")

There was also this sobering sentence on an otherwise long-winded news release from Franklin & Marshall: "The NCAA will cooperate with any executive orders that may be issued by the President."

They weren't referring to the president of the NCAA.

* * *From my emails...

"As soon as the disasters struck, the editors and reporters at the Daily Record were very single-minded about what we needed to do to cover the news, both locally and regionally. Reporters, not worrying once about their own safety, hopped into cars and headed to the international airports in Baltimore and Harrisburg to do interviews and take the pulse of the crowds there. Another reporter didn't even flinch before grabbing his notebook and heading to Three Mile Island.

"After some quick planning, we added eight wide-open pages to the Wednesday morning paper. We also decided, at my urging, to chop the sports section from seven pages to three pages. That allowed us to get more attack coverage into the newspaper and it also allowed a second section front to be focused on the local effects of the attack.

"It was shortly after noon, and I was sitting there with the responsibility of taking care of that three-page sports section. The most utterly insignificant three pages in the next day's paper. I couldn't focus on it at all. It was so meaningless to me, reading about the national sports cancellations and calling local high school athletic directors to see what they were doing. I had to edit a column about a local team of marathoners and find a national story about Michael Jordan's apparent return to the NBA.

"There were potentially thousands of dead in New York City alone, just about everyone in the Daily Record newsroom was on this story of the attack on America, and I was still focusing on bats & balls and wins & losses.

"(Meanwhile), my whole sports staff was mobilized. Eduardo Encina was the reporter who was sent to the Harrisburg airport. Dan Connolly, our Orioles writer, went out to do 'man on the street' interviews in York. Dave Sottile, our hockey writer, did a piece on all the members of the Hershey Bears who were stranded in airports across the country, unable to get to training camp. Chrissi Pruitt, our high school sports writer, helped me edit and proof the three-page sports section. And our two sports copy editors, Brad Jennings and Mike Helsabeck, were loaned over to the news department for the day to design some of those extra pages devoted to the terrorist attacks."

* * *Each day, we produce a "budget" of the stories in the next day's newspaper. It's about the most disposable document you can imagine. Dated and irrelevant in mere hours.

I kept my budget titled "York Daily Record stories for Wednesday, Sept. 12."

For Page 1, the budget states:

--- MAIN ART: WORLD TRADE CENTER

--- BOOM0912 -- 50-60 -- local airports, defense firms, nuclear plants, police, schools, courthouse, etc., on alert (Staff, Argento compiling) w/art DEADLINE: 6 p.m.

There is a breathtaking collection of local stories listed on that budget, the hard work of everyone in the newsroom.

Stories on local connections, gas prices, banks, airline pilots, talking to kids about the attacks, Three Mile Island, community gatherings, churches and much more.

Great journalists kicking ass on our worst day.

* * *From my emails...

"(As the day went on) the newsroom atmosphere returned not quite to normal, but to something at least approximating it. Everyone was organized and barreling ahead with their stories and photos and pages. It was bigger than Pearl Harbor, almost everyone agreed. But on the other hand, it was just another big story for a newspaper that has had to handle big story after big story for the past 12 months. ... So it really was business as usual in a lot of eerie ways.

"There was even some sporadic laughter in the newsroom. Journalists have a morbid way of dealing with trauma and tragedy and long hours by making jokes that would probably be inappropriate in just about any other workplace environment. It's just the way we are. But then, I suppose, humor is way that many people naturally deal with their fears.

"On the other hand, the last thing I wanted was a sense of normalcy. ... Of course we need to laugh and we can't keep the adrenaline flowing 24 hours a day. ... But I didn't want to feel like the worst was over, that everything was under control. ... I didn't want this to be just another CNN Special Report with a fancy logo and theme music. ... That wouldn't nearly be doing justice to what this day meant to U.S. history. What this day meant personally for so many Americans who lost a relative or friend, or know somebody who did. ... Tuesday's disaster more than doubled the death toll at Pearl Harbor and will far eclipse the Battle of Antietam (4,800) as the bloodiest day in American history.

"I think that's why our newspaper's editor, Dennis Hetzel, decided early in the day that our banner headline on Page 1 would simply be '9/11/01.'"

* * *And, of course, I still have my copy of that "9/11/01" issue of the York Daily Record.

Do you still have yours?

Our original words -- messy, raw, emotional and sometimes inaccurate (No, it wasn't deadlier than Antietam.) -- will always be among the most valuable information we can retain for future generations.