It’s been eons — a good month I’ll bet — since you’ve thought of sharks, or Boeing’s Chicago headquarters, or U.S. Rep. Gary Condit.
The subject for today is ancient history.
This is no column. It’s only a list. But in it is found innocence, if not peace.
They weren’t carefree, those days before Sept. 11. If someone had asked, we’d have said we were worried about our brown lawns maybe, or whether the nation could afford the tax-cut checks we were getting.
Now we know worry.
These, according to Herald papers from Sept. 1-10, were the things on our minds before it all changed:
The big news out of New York City was the "Cinderella funeral" of pop star Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash.
? A front-page story said Social Security had paid $31 million to people listed as dead in the agency’s files.
Mr. Rogers said goodbye on Aug. 30.
Janet Reno, the Clinton administration’s attorney general, was considering a run against Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
The only skyscraper in the news was the 36-story Chicago building that once housed Morton International headquarters. On Sept. 4, it would welcome the Boeing Co.
Page A3 profiled possible candidates to fill the shoes of Pope John Paul II.
A 10-year-old Virginia boy was in critical condition following a shark attack.
"Bush putting the economy at the top of his fall agenda," a headline said.
A Marysville teen-ager let readers in on the Heelys fad. The athletic shoes have a recessed wheel in the heel.
A report said commanders in charge of fighting the deadly Thirty-mile fire in Eastern Washington ignored safety guidelines.
An article on term-paper peddling said the asking price starts at $6 a page.
On the front page we met Alan Mulally, Boeing’s commercial airplanes chief, who was to remain in Seattle.
The Snohomish County Auditor’s Office was "waltzing into the 21st century" with online access to voting information and documents.
A thousand firefighters fought a wind-whipped blaze at Glacier National Park.
In North Carolina, there was more shark mayhem. One man died and his wife was in critical condition.
Catholic schoolgirls in Northern Ireland were targets of Protestant protests.
Everett residents turned on their taps to find rusty water after reservoir maintenance sent the flow through long unused pipes.
Actress Anne Heche appeared on ABC’s "20/20" to claim she’d been sexually abused and had developed a personality called Celestia.
Pentagon officials revealed plans to develop a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax so the U.S. could test vaccines against it. "What we want to do is make sure we are prepared for any surprises," a spokeswoman said.
Free Everett Transit bus service, offered during bridge work on Highway 529, had ended.
— The daughter of embattled Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., defended him as "loving, caring, compassionate."
Mexico’s President Vincente Fox dropped by the White House. Maryland crab was on the menu.
The state insurance commissioner signed a rule requiring insurance companies to offer women birth control coverage.
Snohomish County PUD commissioners approved an 18 percent boost in electricity rates for residential customers.
The Bush administration abandoned Clinton-era efforts to break up Microsoft.
My column took talk-radio host Tom Leykis to task for revealing the name of the woman who jumped from an I-5 bridge.
A report on the 4.9 percent unemployment rate ignited a stock- market sell-off.
Verizon Northwest boosted local pay phone calls from 35 cents to 50 cents.
In New York, celebrities showed up to mark the 30th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s solo career.
It was front-page news that schools were trying limit sales of soft drinks and junk food.
America Online had given police the name of a user who allegedly claimed to have witnessed JonBenet Ramsey’s murder.
I wrote about National Grandparents Day.
The morning before the terrorist attacks, readers found this top national story: "Country life harmful to your health."
Bob Dylan told Time magazine that "hideous sounds" come from his teen-age daughter’s radio.
A suicide bomber killed three people in Israel.
In Los Angeles, a 4.2 magnitude quake shook folks up.
And, at the bottom of Page A3, was a little story in the World Briefly column, "Afghanistan: Trial continues."
"As the trial of eight foreign aid workers accused of proselytizing entered its fifth day Sunday," the item read, "the ruling Taliban was accused of jailing 35 Afghan employees of another Christian aid organization."
You haven’t thought of sharks in a month. It’s also a safe bet you didn’t read that Afghanistan item. Why would you?
