 The world held its breath as it watched foggy images on vintage TV sets of Man setting foot on the moon. That was July 21, 1969. Next day was a boomer in the Advocate newsroom. Devoting an entire front page to one event was unheard of until then, I'm pretty sure. Never mind that only the Second Coming of Christ could inspire anything equal to the Advocate's recent report on NHS winning the state basketball tournament. We were exuberant and generous in display of Man's triumph, and typographers searched crannies and corners to come up with the "biggest typeface we have" for editor Frank Spencer Jr. Once located in some old type drawer, the biggest was only two inches tall, but maybe a record back then for Page One. The size of type dictated what the headline could say and it was written to fit. Engravers did the best they could with the best image of Neil Armstrong's boot touching the moon that AP could muster. That it was crappy was unimportant. It was, by God, Man's first step onto something other than Earth and we had memorialized it journalistically. Big picture, big words, immortal caption: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Later that day though, the irreverence that was part of the old-time news business eventually took over. That big page, that big picture, that big event just sung out to someone - I forget who it was - and a line at the bottom of the page was substituted for the original. Several proofs were pulled for employees, and I still have one, though it's faded and discolored. The substitute line is: "Jesus Christ! It really is green cheese." No, nothing was sacred back then. |
Page One