50-year-old newspaper offers window to the past

A highlight of the holiday hiatus was receiving a yellowed, but otherwise pristine copy of the Monday, Dec. 9, 1963, edition of the defunct Houston Press that offered a peek into the city barely two weeks after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

With the nation still reeling from the tragedy, the paper that day published a special section on the assassination and its aftermath, but had apparently moved on to other news.

The lead story on the front page reported the kidnapping of the singer Frank Sinatra's son by "two young desperados" at a motel in Stateline, Nevada.

Another prominent front page story concerned the desecration of an American flag at Cynthia Ann Parker Elementary School by a "young punk" trying to "cash in on the notoriety and public indignation that followed a similar desecration in another school the weekend President Kennedy was slain."

The Houston Press, then one of three major daily newspapers serving the city, was founded in 1911 and ceased publication in March 1964.

In its relatively short life it gained a reputation as a gritty, somewhat sensational broadsheet that launched the careers of, among others, famed CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, author Thomas Thompson, legendary Houston society writer Maxine Mesinger and television personality Marvin Zindler.

It was also the home of Sigman Byrd, one of the great voices in Houston journalism, who chronicled the seamier side of life in Houston in his column "The Stroller."

Part of the pleasure in paging through a 50-year-old newspaper is that it gives one the opportunity to measure the current world against the past. My personal favorite in this particular edition is the item anchoring the bottom of the front page, headlined "Boys Spanked After Setting $100,000 Fire".

"Three small boys - including two brothers - probably still have strong feelings about the $100,000 fire they admitted setting yesterday afternoon," it begins.

Eve of mayoral run-off

"The trio, aged 9, 10 and 11, got a taste of old-fashioned justice when their mothers borrowed arson investigator B.A. Cook's leather belt and turned the central fire station into a makeshift woodshed last night.

"Hours later, as officers completed their investigation, the tears were still coming from the silent youngsters."

We can't say for sure, but we suspect that had those youngsters set the fire in today's climate, they would have been charged with felonies and, if found guilty, would have begun a journey through the juvenile justice system.

It's probably safe to say, however, that they would not now be described as "Negro youths."

That Monday in 1963 was also the eve of a runoff election in which the paper offered a front page endorsement of Louie Welch for mayor of Houston. His fourth attempt to become mayor was successful, and he held office for the next 10 years.

Other items worthy of the cover were the crash in Elkton, Md., of a Pan American World Airways Boeing 707 that killed 81 people; a warming trend weather-wise that called for a low of 40 degrees and a high of 60; and the shotgun slaying of a Texas game warden in a field near Mauriceville.

Shamrock Hilton

Items that possibly would not be considered worthy by today's standards were Mesinger's bold-faced Big City Beat gossip column (which reported that "some 800 fellas" had gathered for legendary wildcatter Glenn McCarthy's annual wild game dinner at his Shamrock Hilton Hotel) and the news that the Press' photo editor had become a grandfather.

Familiar futility

A trip back in time is also valuable, perhaps, because it reminds us that in many respects, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Sports writer Al Thomy laments that the day before, the Houston Oilers football team had "played Santa" by giving the Boston Patriots a lop-sided victory, dropping the team to a 6-6 record on the season.

And a wire story from United Press International reported that a 70-foot red spruce was put in place at the White House and that President Johnson would light it up and deliver a Christmas address to the nation on Dec. 22.

It was a message tinged with sorrow.