Fun special section included this week for subscribers

Online subscribers have access to this week's special Remember When ... section via their included digital copy of the newspaper by signing in and clicking on the Jan. 31, 2018 PDF at the upper right corner of the content section.

You can also find past electronic versions of the printed Stars there. This week's Remember When ... section can be found by scrolling through the pages of The Star; the special section simply starts after the last Star page.

This was one of the most difficult special sections for the staff at The Star to put together.

Oh sure, the source material was readily at hand, but if you've ever tried to focus on a research task while looking through any of our hardbound archive volumes - books the size of a newspaper and filled with about a year's worth of them - you'll appreciate that we had the collective attention span of a cocker spaniel in a forest full of squirrels.

That, after all, was the inspiration for this section: People who come in to research various projects rarely get through them in the time they thought they would, simply because they get lost in the articles and photos. They are that much fun to look through.

Our archives of The Star go back to 1946, plus we have a few random earlier papers people have found over the years, including a volume of the Grand Coulee News from 1934-1936.

The newspapers record great moments in community history; the progress of the great public works projects, including Grand Coulee Dam; the disagreements; the progress; the celebrations; the victories and the heartaches through the decades.

They reveal changes in cultural norms, shifting priorities, forgotten practices. The tides of commerce and industry, trends in business, and the tiny celebrations of individuals' achievements all repeat through the pages in rhythms through the years, like the ripples in the sand in a corner of the beach of time.

Our methodology was haphazard, cocker spaniels that we are, and our scanning equipment was about as sophisticated as the iPhones in our pockets. Actually, it was the iPhones in our pockets.

We've tried to bring you a taste of the decades here, but we have plenty left to do for another such section. So we focused a little more on the latter decades many still remember. You might be featured, or an old friend, neighbor, coworker or relative.

We trust you'll let us know what we did wrong or right, but we only hope that you'll have fun reading as you Remember When ....