Real Life...Bonafide...Newspaper Comics

 Yes...it's true.

The Harold Journal newspaper from Cache Valley includes comics in their editions. And not just one page of comics, no sir-ee. They've got two pages of comics.

The way things used to be.

We stopped subscribing to a newspaper years ago. We got the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News for decades. Then...nothing. I don't know what caused us to cancel. There was probably a rate increase and we felt it wasn't worth it. Plus, we had towers of papers stacked up in various places around the house until finally we dumped them all in the recycle bin.

It's just the way it was.

When we moved north, we thought a good way to get to know the community was to subscribe to the town's newspaper. The be honest, it's not much of a newspaper in the technical sense. It's printed once a week and sometimes it's only eight pages long. A couple of pages for the main stories, two pages dedicated to sports, a commentary page, an obituary page, a page for ads, and a TV schedule page. I'm not knocking the paper--I think it's a minor miracle it's even published at all. I applaud those behind it. There's just not much there.

Last month we were stopped by a man signing up people for either the Ogden Standard Examiner (we used to subscribe to it, too...), and the Logan Harold Journal. We thought we'd give the journal a try. We got the first editions this week. They have comics.

I used to read the comics religiously. Sometimes it was the only part of the paper I would read. It's been so long since we've subscribed to a paper with comics, I wasn't sure it was still a ting. The Harold Journal has them. There are comics I know and remember and some I've never heard of. I think it'll be fun getting to know those characters all over again.

A Blast From The Past...SLC Winter Olympics Edition

So, what things have you been doing in the past couple of months? Even those of us fortunate enough to be working have looked at life differently, and even do more things around the house. One thing we've done was do a little spring cleaning. You know, some interesting treasures can be found when you do a little spring cleaning.

I came across a small pamphlet that's been buried for almost two decades. Back in 2002, Utah hosted the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. I was one of thousands of people who volunteered to be part of the history-making event.

What was my job, you ask?

Even if you don't ask, I'm going to tell you. I was part of a very select group of volunteers. Most volunteers can be identified by the color of their Marker winter coats they wore. I knew what the colors meant at one time, but it's been so long, I can't remember them I do remember  a red coat meant that volunteer was involved in the medical field. There were blue coats and green coats and other colors. The color of my coat was...

Brown.

I doubt 99% of the other volunteers have any idea what a brown-coated volunteer did. Basically, we were part of the transportation corp. My duties involved driving cops from the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City to the main Olympic center located even more downtown. I never met any cool athletes or press from around the world. I met cops and other security personnel that flew in from other cities.

I know why the Accreditation pamphlet looked so new. It's because I never needed to even open it up. The information is to let volunteers know about how important their accreditation is and what to do if it gets lost, as well as addressing other important questions volunteers may have. 

For me, I had my pass. It got me into the hotel parking lot where the 15-passenger vans were parked and from there, I drive cops downtown, then picked up others when their shifts were done.

Looking at the pamphlet brought back some fun memories. No, mine wasn't the volunteer experience most had, but I'm glad I was able to do my part and help out.

And I have a unique-colored coat to show for it.