From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Aug. 8, 1988:

• In spite of the hot, dry weather this summer, Douglas County Extension Service agents were calling this year’s Free Fair a success. A drought had threatened some projects and had perhaps contributed to a slight decrease in the number of horticulture entries, but it had had no such effect on the livestock exhibits, according to extension agriculture agent Jack Lindquist. As for the hot weather, Lindquist said he guessed that people had simply become used to its continued presence since May and had come to the fair in spite of it. Douglas County Undersheriff Loren Anderson said that he didn’t have any official crowd counts, but he estimated that attendance had been up a bit and that it had been a peaceful week. “We had a real good fair, because there weren’t any large disturbances,” Anderson said. Diane Helmuth, county extension home economist, said that the drought had affected the open-class canned products because spring gardens hadn’t produced much. She also speculated that people were doing more freezing than canning this year, in an attempt to avoid heating up the house until the fall garden crops came in.
• The town of Eighty Eight in Kentucky was the place to be today. The 200 residents of the farming community tended to escape notice from the national media, but today was 8/8/88 and the little town was on the front page of some newspapers. The busiest person in Eighty Eight was probably Donnie Sue Bacon, who handled the mail for the 70 rural addresses from a cubbyhole office in the front corner of the 88 Market. Mrs. Bacon’s hand-stamped postmark had become a hot item as early as January of this year, with everyone from graduating seniors to marrying couples sending in their 1988 announcements to be stamped with the “Eighty Eight” mark. Mrs. Bacon’s old pad and stamp had gotten worn out by spring and the Postal Service had equipped her with a new self-inking postmark device as a replacement. And the mail kept coming in, particularly for this special day; letter-writers from as far away as Italy, Argentina, and Singapore wanted their mail sent out of Eighty Eight on 8-8-88.
• Speaking of postal matters, print advertising in the mail had also gotten some attention this week. To many people, “junk mail” was just an annoyance, but the surprising results of a national Postal Service survey just released said that 31 percent of those surveyed said they found such mail useful, and 27 percent even said they would like to receive more advertisements in the mail. In contrast, only 15 percent said they wished they received less advertising in the mail.