MID-SOUTH MEMORIES

25 years ago — 1996

He stuck with her during the latenight talk show wars and defended her when NBC fired her in the fall of 1992, but Jay Leno has had little to say about his longtime former manager Helen Kushnick since her Aug. 28 death. Asked about her after Kathy Bates failed to win an Emmy for her vicious portrayal of Kushnick in HBO'S The Late Shift, Leno hurriedly observed, ''I haven't seen her in the past four or five years — and that's that.'' Speaking of the Emmy Awards, who's Jack Parr and what's Hillstreet Blues? Those were just a couple of the misspellings on the clips featured on the Emmy broadcast. They meant Jack Paar and Hill Street Blues.

50 years ago — 1971

BYURAKAN, Soviet Union – Last week, for the first time since life originated on this planet, its most intelligent species met at an international conference to consider the possibility of communicating with life on other worlds. The Soviets revealed that they conducted two experiments last year designed to intercept signals from such distant civilizations.

75 years ago — 1946

Layoffs and shorter working hours have come to the Memphis meat packing industry as already short meat supplies dwindle, a survey disclosed yesterday. Memphis packers and retailers paint a gloomy picture of the meat situation, highlighted by desperate efforts to stretch the scant supplies of beef, pork and lamb they say are reaching local markets. Two of the major Memphis packing houses disclosed they have had to lay off workmen and salesmen while a third has been working hours and is faced with the possibility of working still.

100 years ago — 1921

Seventeen long and weary years of hopeful and patient waiting by the baseball fans of our fair City of Memphis have been rewarded. The Chickasaws of Memphis are the champions of the 1921 Southern League season. Memphis had its last championship team in 1904, the fourth campaign of the present organization.

125 years ago — 1896

PITTSBURGH – Thirty carloads of the Homestead Steel Mills workers left Pittsburgh last night to call on William Mckinley today at his Canton, Ohio, home.

THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL FILES Sept. 16, 2017: Victor Sawyer, a trombonist for local band The Dead Soldiers, warms up his instrument outside of First Congregational Church prior to his group’s afternoon performance at the 30th annual Cooper-young Festival. The event was expected to draw an attendance of around 130,000 people.