'Finally got a round tuit today (you've heard of round tuits, haven't you? They are what you acquire when you accomplish something you've been meaning to do for some time) and went down to The Indianapolis Central Library and scanned the microfilm roll of the December 1963 editions of The Indianapolis News.
That newspaper went the way of 'most all evening dailys decades ago. But in 1963, it was the largest-circulation evening newspaper in Indiana, and a major player in the print market here.
It was the evening product of Indianapolis Newspapers Inc, which also owned and published The Indianapolis Star morning newspaper. The Star is still published as Indianapolis' only daily newspaper, although half of it is/are customized pages from USA Today, since the big Gannett Publishing conglomerate on the east coast now owns The Indianapolis Star...and that's probably the extent to which I should venture into the editorial realities of today's Gannett-directed Indianapolis Star!
<GGG>
Anyway,I knew I had a Letter to the Editor published in a December 1963 Indianapolis News, but had forgotten in which issue it had been published. I've been meaning to look it up for some time since I was only 17 years old(!) when I wrote it ...and having it published taught me two distinct "things." Here it is, as published in the December 31, 1963 Indianapolis News:
The two things I learned as a result of having it published:
1. You have no control over the heading that will be assigned to your letter by the newspaper's editors. In this case, as can be seen, I did not blame "state officials" for the loss of Studebaker, as the editor's heading claims. Rather, I said Indiana should have been making more of a concerted effort to buy and use Studebaker vehicles, since they were manufactured here.
2. The "answer" given by Harold Brotherton, I felt, was my formal introduction to BS from a bureaucrat! It is known that Studebaker would/could make a vehicle to almost any specification, given half a chance...or, alternately, the state could have worked with Studebaker to make sure Studebaker could not build a vehicle the state needed before "letting" the contract elsewhere. I suspected at the time that Brotherton's remark was as convenient as anything he could dream up to justify what they were doing anyway...and exactly 50 years later, I still do.
Now, as to blissful ignorance.
I, and probably other less-informed people such as myself (at the time), equated Studebaker's employment in Indiana as being a big deal because they built Studebakers in South Bend. In retrospect, I now know that General Motors undoubtedly employed two or three times as many people in Indiana as did Studebaker in 1963, even though they didn't build complete vehicles here. (They do now, of course, building Chevrolet and GMC trucks in Roanoke, A/K/A "Ft. Wayne Assembly.")
'Truth be known, probably Ford and Chrysler employed as many, if not more, people in Indiana in 1963 as did Studebaker....but, again, given my myopic 17-year-old vision de jour, they didn't build 'em here, dammit!
I thought I had clipped and saved most items about Studebaker's closing from the newspapers back then, but found a couple items I had missed. I copied them for everyone's edification and comment, if you like. (If they are difficult to read, press ctrl and "+" at the same time on your keyboard and it will enlarge the text):
To illustrate what likely happened to so many new-for-1959 Studebaker customers when it came time to trade their 1959 Larks, we have this used-car ad from the big Bill Kuhn Chevrolet dealership group:
OUCH! A 4-year-old Lark traded in on a new Chevrolet, priced at $495...you can be sure the Bill Kuhn group didn't have more than $100 hard money in that poor Lark, if that much!
(You think that was bad? I didn't copy it, but another used-car ad from big Jerry Alderman Ford had a box of "bargain priced" cars in one corner. Included was, for example, a 1950 Chevrolet for $119.. But the only car in that box priced under $100 was a 1956 Packard 2-door hardtop...for $78! Really; $78 for what must have been a running and driving, 7-year-old 1956 Packard hardtop!
)
Finally, I ran across two items in the December 27, 1963 Indianapolis News that illustrate something, but I'm not sure what it is. You be the judge:
Those two items, in the same article, discussed the results of The Indianapolis News having polled its Indiana Associated Press writers and its own writers (two different groups), asking them to rank what they thought were the top ten 1963 Indiana news stories (not nationally, so the JFK assassination wasn't mentioned).
The results are shocking for us in Studebaker-land: Neither poll's results included Studebaker's South Bend closing as a Top Ten 1963 Indiana news story!
Gad, I would have thought Studebaker's closing would have made one of the polls, if not both of them...but there it was in black and white: Studebaker's South Bend closing was not considered a Top Ten Indiana news story in 1963. Unbelievable.
So, you may ask, what was more newsworthy in 1963 in Indiana than Studebaker's closing?
Several things were legitimate, such as the Halloween Night Holiday on Ice State Fairgrounds coliseum explosion that killed circa 77 people and injured scores more. (A leaking propane tank fitting or connection in improperly-stored propane tanks under the concrete seating, to fuel popcorn poppers, had allowed propane to accumulate under the seating structure until something ignited it, blowing huge sections of seats, concrete, and people into the air, onto the arena's ice, at the conclusion of the show. Horrific.)
On the other end of the scale, from legitimate (the coliseum explosion) to ridiculous, was the Associated Press of Indiana correspondents' selection of the tenth most important 1963 Indiana news item, which was (and I quote verbatim):
10. Three Indiana University Young Socialists indicted on charges of subversive activity.
Yep, there you have it; that was more newsworthy than Studebaker's closing in South Bend, at least according to Associated Press writers assigned to Indiana. Ah, the more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?
Obviously, what was supposed to be a 15-minute search for one Letter to the Editor turned into two hours of enjoyably reading and reflecting from the December, 1963 editions of The Indianapolis News. ('Good thing I accidentally put too much time on the parking meter; we needed it!)
BP
That newspaper went the way of 'most all evening dailys decades ago. But in 1963, it was the largest-circulation evening newspaper in Indiana, and a major player in the print market here.
It was the evening product of Indianapolis Newspapers Inc, which also owned and published The Indianapolis Star morning newspaper. The Star is still published as Indianapolis' only daily newspaper, although half of it is/are customized pages from USA Today, since the big Gannett Publishing conglomerate on the east coast now owns The Indianapolis Star...and that's probably the extent to which I should venture into the editorial realities of today's Gannett-directed Indianapolis Star!
<GGG>Anyway,I knew I had a Letter to the Editor published in a December 1963 Indianapolis News, but had forgotten in which issue it had been published. I've been meaning to look it up for some time since I was only 17 years old(!) when I wrote it ...and having it published taught me two distinct "things." Here it is, as published in the December 31, 1963 Indianapolis News:
The two things I learned as a result of having it published:
1. You have no control over the heading that will be assigned to your letter by the newspaper's editors. In this case, as can be seen, I did not blame "state officials" for the loss of Studebaker, as the editor's heading claims. Rather, I said Indiana should have been making more of a concerted effort to buy and use Studebaker vehicles, since they were manufactured here.
2. The "answer" given by Harold Brotherton, I felt, was my formal introduction to BS from a bureaucrat! It is known that Studebaker would/could make a vehicle to almost any specification, given half a chance...or, alternately, the state could have worked with Studebaker to make sure Studebaker could not build a vehicle the state needed before "letting" the contract elsewhere. I suspected at the time that Brotherton's remark was as convenient as anything he could dream up to justify what they were doing anyway...and exactly 50 years later, I still do.
Now, as to blissful ignorance.
I, and probably other less-informed people such as myself (at the time), equated Studebaker's employment in Indiana as being a big deal because they built Studebakers in South Bend. In retrospect, I now know that General Motors undoubtedly employed two or three times as many people in Indiana as did Studebaker in 1963, even though they didn't build complete vehicles here. (They do now, of course, building Chevrolet and GMC trucks in Roanoke, A/K/A "Ft. Wayne Assembly.")
'Truth be known, probably Ford and Chrysler employed as many, if not more, people in Indiana in 1963 as did Studebaker....but, again, given my myopic 17-year-old vision de jour, they didn't build 'em here, dammit!
I thought I had clipped and saved most items about Studebaker's closing from the newspapers back then, but found a couple items I had missed. I copied them for everyone's edification and comment, if you like. (If they are difficult to read, press ctrl and "+" at the same time on your keyboard and it will enlarge the text):
To illustrate what likely happened to so many new-for-1959 Studebaker customers when it came time to trade their 1959 Larks, we have this used-car ad from the big Bill Kuhn Chevrolet dealership group:
OUCH! A 4-year-old Lark traded in on a new Chevrolet, priced at $495...you can be sure the Bill Kuhn group didn't have more than $100 hard money in that poor Lark, if that much!
(You think that was bad? I didn't copy it, but another used-car ad from big Jerry Alderman Ford had a box of "bargain priced" cars in one corner. Included was, for example, a 1950 Chevrolet for $119.. But the only car in that box priced under $100 was a 1956 Packard 2-door hardtop...for $78! Really; $78 for what must have been a running and driving, 7-year-old 1956 Packard hardtop!
) Finally, I ran across two items in the December 27, 1963 Indianapolis News that illustrate something, but I'm not sure what it is. You be the judge:
Those two items, in the same article, discussed the results of The Indianapolis News having polled its Indiana Associated Press writers and its own writers (two different groups), asking them to rank what they thought were the top ten 1963 Indiana news stories (not nationally, so the JFK assassination wasn't mentioned).
The results are shocking for us in Studebaker-land: Neither poll's results included Studebaker's South Bend closing as a Top Ten 1963 Indiana news story!
Gad, I would have thought Studebaker's closing would have made one of the polls, if not both of them...but there it was in black and white: Studebaker's South Bend closing was not considered a Top Ten Indiana news story in 1963. Unbelievable.
So, you may ask, what was more newsworthy in 1963 in Indiana than Studebaker's closing?
Several things were legitimate, such as the Halloween Night Holiday on Ice State Fairgrounds coliseum explosion that killed circa 77 people and injured scores more. (A leaking propane tank fitting or connection in improperly-stored propane tanks under the concrete seating, to fuel popcorn poppers, had allowed propane to accumulate under the seating structure until something ignited it, blowing huge sections of seats, concrete, and people into the air, onto the arena's ice, at the conclusion of the show. Horrific.)
On the other end of the scale, from legitimate (the coliseum explosion) to ridiculous, was the Associated Press of Indiana correspondents' selection of the tenth most important 1963 Indiana news item, which was (and I quote verbatim):
10. Three Indiana University Young Socialists indicted on charges of subversive activity.
Yep, there you have it; that was more newsworthy than Studebaker's closing in South Bend, at least according to Associated Press writers assigned to Indiana. Ah, the more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?
Obviously, what was supposed to be a 15-minute search for one Letter to the Editor turned into two hours of enjoyably reading and reflecting from the December, 1963 editions of The Indianapolis News. ('Good thing I accidentally put too much time on the parking meter; we needed it!)
BP 
A sad reality. BP
'63 Avanti R-1384. sold 12/10.
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