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Interior Time Machine: Feb. 3, 1983 (January 30, 2013) |
The first thing I noticed about The Interior Journal issue from Feb. 3, 1983, was the different slogan at the top:
"The newspaper for you in '83."
It's almost a great slogan, but it sounded a lot better the previous year, when it was, "The newspaper for you in '82."
That slogan wasn't used until April 29, 1982. Prior to that, the IJ used the much-less-catchy "Lincoln County's Largest Circulated Newspaper."
The next thing I noticed was a story about Lincoln County receiving "surplus cheese:"
County to get more surplus cheese
Another shipment of government cheese is scheduled to arrive in Lincoln County on or around February 22, according to Judge Earl Butcher. Butcher made the statement during the regular session of Lincoln County Fiscal Court Tuesday, February 2.
Butcher said 40,000 pounds of cheese had been applied for but he was uncertain of how much the county would actually receive saying only, "If they have it, we'll get it."
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The story goes on to document a dispute over noise and messiness around "Cecil Lane's entertainment establishment" and notes that the fiscal court "was informed that the jail would 'hopefully' be finished by next month."
It would be truly bizarre to see today's Lincoln County Fiscal Court dealing with shipments of cheese, but it seems it wasn't that weird in 1983.
Back when this issue of The Interior Journal came out, the government still distributed bulk amounts of cheese for people receiving welfare or food stamps.
Such programs ended in the 1990s, as far as I can gauge. It's really too bad because it means there's rarely any good reason to use the extremely fun phrase, "government cheese."
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Interior Time Machine is curated by Interior Journal Editor Ben Kleppinger. Email ben@theinteriorjournal.com with comments and suggestions.
