The Raider Record, Vol. 22 #3

It’s time once again to dip into the ’80s and revisit another issue of the Raider Record, the junior high school paper of which I was copy editor between 1985 and 1987. As always, you can find every issue from that period scanned in PDF form here, or you can view or download this specific issue here. Going through and scanning these, lots of memories came bubbling up to the surface, unbidden, that I thought would be entertaining to record for posterity here.

Previous installments of this blog series mentioned that we were on the bleeding edge of (budget) desktop publishing technology, and my own experience with the Apple II was coming in perhaps too “handy” in the process of putting the paper together. By now, we’re on issue #3, we’ve hit something resembling a stride, and let’s see what all I can pick up at a glance from my dusty, cobwebbed synapses.

• I apologize for turning Michelle Obana into an Irish lass in the front page orchestra article.
• How on earth did I end up writing the “Runaway” piece? I was such a homebody that I don’t think the thought had ever occurred to me at that point in my life. Later, yes, but in 1985?
• It’s interesting how closely we were watching the Northside closed campus “crisis” unfold, considering that I’m not sure anyone working on the paper was even old enough for a learners’ permit.
• Hey, Fluffy’s back!
• That “Dear Dora” letter…wow. I suppose it’s something of a universal scenario, but 2016 Me is just a little surprised to see the notion even so much as entertained. Different times.
• Not only am I still talking about Halley’s Comet (its impending arrival was very heavily in the news at the time), but I’m pimping the local Apple-based computer bulletin board system of which I was the system operator (SysOp) at the time, hilariously called PMS. The amount of stuff with my byline in this issue makes me think we were on crunch time, and/or had lost some people as the first semester wound down. (It happens.)

• My major memory of this issue is the somewhat abrupt conclusion to the serialized “Night Fright” story that had begun in the first issue. When I happened upon this, the memory came back pretty forcefully: what you’re reading here is a replacement for what was originally handed in by the writer of the first two segments of the story. I forget exactly what the third installment was like, but I do remember that it hit us as disturbing, and Rob Heyman wound up having to wrap the story up quickly. I don’t remember anything more specific than that, which may be just as well; it was pretty macabre stuff. I don’t think we ever did the “original fiction” thing again, though some original poetry would keep showing up from time to time.

That’s really it for this issue. I’m sure we were all ready for Christmas break to hit (and we probably are now too), and worrying whether or not we’d get that Swatch we all undoubtedly asked Santa for (see page 6).