“It’s all the same, only the names will change.”
~ Bon Jovi, “Wanted Dead or Alive”
The opening lyric to a 1986 “hair band” song might not seem like it has anything to do with nearly 139 years of newspaper archives from a rural Colorado town, but it could easily be the headline for the Days Gone By section.
For example, this week, after formatting the current issue’s letter to the editor about mosquito abatement, I opened the archives from 1998 to find a front page article by former Rangely Mayor Don Peach that outlined all the very same positions for and against aerial spraying, fogging and larvaecide treatments. In the very same 25-year-old paper was a letter to the editor from someone complaining about “newcomers making changes.” The letter was so similar in tone and verbiage to a social media post a few weeks ago I had to look to see if they were written by the same person. They were not.
This phenomenon occurs more frequently than I’d like to admit, and it extends far beyond 25 years into the past. Last week’s Meeker Herald from 1923 had a story about trying to manage the so-called Mormon crickets that had hatched. A century later, we also had a story, the same week, about crickets.
It’s comforting to view current events through the lens of history, knowing those who’ve gone before us have survived similar events and situations. It’s also a little unnerving to see how much of life appears to be “copy-paste.” As Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” If that’s true, are we predestined to play a certain part or do we get to choose the role we’ll play?
Back in 1898 the Herald published a sort of small town “cast list.” It’s still pretty accurate.
From the Meeker Herald, June 18, 1898
EVERY TOWN HAS
A liar.
A sponger.
A blatherskite.
A smart Aleck.
Its richest man.
Some pretty girls.
A girl who giggles.
A weather prophet.
A woman who tattles.
A neighborhood feud.
Half a dozen lunatics.
A justice of the peace.
A man who knows-it-all.
More loafers than it needs.
Men who see every dog fight.
A few meddlesome old women.
A ‘thing’ that stares at women.
A stock law that is not enforced.
Several boys who cut up in church.
At least one Jeffersonian Democrat.
A widower who is too gay for his age.
Some men who make remarks about women.
A preacher who thinks he ought to run the town.
A married man who allows his wife to take in washing.
A few who know how to run the affairs of the country.
A grown young man who laughs every time he says anything.
A girl who goes to the post office every time the mail comes in.
A young man who imagines all the girls completely ‘gone’ on him.
A young lady who thinks that she is the only personification of Venus.
A legion of smart Alecks who can tell the editor how to run his paper.
Scores of men with the caboose of their trousers worn smooth as glass.
A man who grins when you talk and laughs out loud after he has said something.
~Ex.
By NIKI TURNER | [email protected]
