MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1994 A bodyguard for figure skating champion Tonya Harding has admitted being involved in the attack that knocked Harding’s main rival, Nancy Kerrigan, out of the national championships, NBC News reported Wednesday. NBC’S Now program, citing anonymous sources, said Shawn Eric Eckardt confessed to being involved in the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit. The NBC report expanded on a Wednesday story by The Portland Oregonian that the FBI was investigating allegations that Harding’s husband, Jeff Gillooly, and Eckardt were involved in the attack. In last week’s attack, a man brandishing a club struck Kerrigan after a practice session, severely bruising her right leg and forcing her to withdraw from the competition. The man escaped. 50 years ago — 1969 The government said in Washington yesterday that it is growing its own marijuana for laboratory use, and the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Mississippi has the main contract for growing it in the field. The National Institute of Mental Health said the government-produced marijuana would be used by it and by private researchers to determine the effects of marijuana on humans. The institute said the recent boost in illegal marijuana use had created new social and medical problems and that an accelerated research program was needed to provide objective data. 75 years ago — 1944 Memphis workers will be asked this week to “help launch the invasion” by taking jobs at the Charleston, S.C., Navy Yard, where 6,000 new workers are needed immediately for building the Navy’s new invasion craft, the LSM (Landing Ship Merchandised) under the government’s $5,000,000,000 program for providing craft of the type within the near future. 100 years ago — 1919 COBLENZ, Germany — At this proud military fortress yesterday a commission of German aviators began the humiliating task of turning over $1,320,000 worth of aeroplanes to their American conquerors. Under the terms of the armistice the Germans are forced to give a 15 minute test flight to one plane out of every 20. In the presence of a large American crowd German pilot Von Hausen, who shot down Theodore Roosevelt’s son, Quentin, was forced to make a flight despite a terrific gale. After an exhibition of trick flying he was chagrined to learn upon landing that he had only flown 13 minutes instead of the required 15. Ordered to go up again, he repeated the flight. The plane crashed to earth, burying him under the wreckage. He was critically, perhaps mortally, wounded. 125 years ago — 1894 The terrible depression in business for the past year has caused us to try an experiment to keep things going. Full well you know the old style of doing business on credit. Some pay prompt, some pay late and some don’t pay at all. We call our new way “bargain sales.” On Saturdays we will sell for “cash only” many articles at prices so low it will astonish you. This week it will be silk crochet suspenders for 98 cents (found elsewhere for $1.98), collars, cuffs and half-hose at bargain prices. Henry Loeb & Co., 314 Main.