THE TIMES

From page A1

born to play.

What is the old expression? Do something you love and you will never work a day in your life. So just as with my job at the track or teaching I wanted to dive in head first and immerse myself in my new career. My first stop was to delve through the plethora of information and articles of the people who had come before and not only study up on the history of my community but also the standard that would be expected of me. That first stop quickly turned into a roadblock as I was informed that due to a fire in 2006 at The Evening Times all of the back archives were destroyed. I was told that they might be on file somewhere in Little Rock, but this news was heartbreaking, to say the least. Not only was this a personal loss to me, but also a cultural and historical loss to the citizens of West Memphis and all residents of Crittenden County.

Then I had an epiphany. In all of those journalism movies I love to watch so much where does the main character almost always end up at one point? That’s right, the local library. Could it be that all of those movies had lied to me? Would the library really have hundreds if not thousands of back papers? Did they survive the move to the new building? It turns out that sometimes you really can believe what you see on tv as yes, yes they did. All backed up on microfilm going back all the way to 1931 when the local paper was known as the Crittenden County Times.

I called ahead to ask if I would be able to use the microfilm scanner and they said they would set it up for me. When I arrived I found that the librarians were just as confused as I was and they, like you probably, dear reader, had never actually used a microfilm machine before and I was one of the first people to actually request to use it. Undaunted I did something I have rarely done before; read the instructions.

It wasn’t long before I was deep diving into the history of Crittenden County with an imaginary operatic soundtrack, probably Ave Maria, playing in my head as I clicked the mouse and the machine reacted; scrolling, clicking and scrolling, clicking and scrolling. The images flying by. Headlines from 1934, 1955, 1978. Adjusting the focus. Contrast, brightness. Placing my hands on the spindles of microfilm to slightly go back a few inches. Zooming, magnifying, reading. Clicking and scrolling…

■ ■ Earle beats Blue Devils 23-0. Ingram runs for re-election.

■ ■ Cordell Trio to play at the JOY Theater.

■ ■ Negro school burned down.

■ ■ 25 inch tv on sale at Bud’s for $699.

■ ■ Civic leader Charles Mullins dies by own hand.

■ ■ Plane comes apart above Marion skies.

■ ■ Bananas 5 cents a pound.

■ ■ Nazi escapes from Turrell prisoner of war camp.

■ ■ Do you suffer from monthly feminine weakness?

I was instantly hooked. I couldn’t stop scrolling and reading. What might the next click bring? My mouth dropped. I laughed out loud (garnering looks from other library patrons). I gasped. I was addicted. Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to “Sir, we are closing in 15 minutes”.

I then began scanning and saving as many articles as I could to my flash drive to read more at home. And then it came to me. Others need to know about the veritable treasure trove of information available. Others should share in my joy (and sometimes horror). And so I called up my editor and proposed a non-conventional idea for a series of articles and he, being wise despite his years, approved my idea that we should gather up some of the most interesting and even some of the more mundane and reprint them.

So, from time to time… to time, The Times will be doing just that in featured articles entitled “Those Were The Times”. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we do finding them and we also encourage you, dear citizen, to pay a visit to your local library and check them out for yourselves. Take it from me, a guy who has never worked a day in his life, you won’t be disappointed.

The microfilm scanner at the West Memphis Library can unlock countless stories from the past… and it’s easier to use than it looks.

Photo by Don Wilburn