Compartment 1

This is an issue of the Cambridge Chronicle from the 1970s. It is disgustingly moldy and dirty but it’s also pretty beautiful – I think this kind of garbage that is so old and so dirty and moldy kind of passes a point after which it becomes priceless because of how long it takes to achieve this level of grime and patina. It sat in the wine/ski room in the basement for 50+ years. The fold you see draped over the top of the shelf is from where it laid on top of the Soviet era Vodka box that the IBM ThinkPad sits on near the shelf. Maybe they were both placed in that closet on the same day, 50+ years ago. Probably by my grandfather Henry, because I’m assuming my grandmother Judy rarely set foot in that ski/wine cellar (one of the grossest rooms in the house). I write more about why I think this in other sections of this site.

This issue has fun ads for mid-century Cambridge businesses and 70s style headlines with wordplay. The one that stands out on the side you can see here is “Classification: boon or boondoggle?” They should bring back this type of headline writing. I didn’t want to touch the newspaper too much or look too closely at it, because it triggers my sinusitis, but it seems to be about some kind of local ordinance about classification that had recently passed in Cambridge.

The Cambridge Chronicle was in print from 1846 up until 2022 when it ceased publication after being purchased by Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the United States by daily circulation. Now it just publishes regional stories from other Gannett papers. I find that kind of sad. This is a one-off object from the archive/hoard of 37GGE, my grandparents’ house. Perhaps there are other old issues of the defunct paper lying in other boxes or closets in that house. If there are, we might find them one day, when we have to clean out the house once and for all.