Almost 32 years ago my picture was on the front page of the Kansas City Star.

You can see by the date that it was the Friday before the 1988 General Election.

The headline for the story with the picture was Getting votes the old-fashioned way.

Just after I graduated from college I had some free time before I moved from Kansas City to Omaha to start a new job and I did some volunteer work at the Jackson County Republican Headquarters.

We spent a lot of time putting mailing labels on campaign literature and handing out information to people who stopped by the office. We had a lot of foot traffic as the headquarters were in a shopping mall. There were also phone banks where people were getting out the message to go vote.

My main task was coordinating the outgoing mail. I had to make sure all the mail pieces were sorted by zip code and put in the right sacks. In the picture above I am sitting on a large stack of mail that is ready to be sent out.

I lost the original newspaper that I had saved. Probably during one of my early moves. However, when I lived in Kansas City I printed out a copy from a micro film so I at least have it as a memory. Unfortunately, the quality is not very good.

The candidate for President in 1988 was George Bush, with Dan Quayle as his running mate. It is interesting that Quayle has been in the news lately as comparisons have been made between the many gaffes that he made and those made by Biden.

I was also able to go to a big Bush rally at Crowne Center in Kansas City.

It was definitely an interesting experience to work for a short time on a campaign. Of course it was not my first campaign experience. I helped my Dad campaign for Mayor of the city where we lived in Iowa when I was young. See: Election Memories

Today the campaign process is very different with automated printing and mailing, computerized phone calling systems and of course social media. This year it is further complicated with social distancing restrictions, social unrest and mail in ballots.

Oh for the good old days.

Steven