By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
March 1986—four decades ago—was one of the most pivotal months of my life. I was about to graduate from law school, I had an offer for my first real job, and I’d just met my future wife.
Forty years later—now knowing a bit more about how things would turn out—I skimmed through the archived headlines of a month of The Salt Lake Tribune. It was a fascinating exercise in time travel, looking at yesterday’s news trends (what might happen) in the context of today (what did happen).
Here are a dozen of my favorite examples, in no particular order.
1. News
I must confess I’d forgotten how back then the weekday Tribune included up to 60 pages. It doubled or even tripled in size for the weekend.
I remembered that the daily newspaper delivered each day to my front porch had some weight to it. It’s hard to even get a print newspaper of any kind these days, and when you do, it is substantive but very light reading.
I miss that old newspaper, but I do enjoy having a wealth of information readily available on a mobile device that rarely is more than five feet away. It really is the golden age of information.
2. Civility
There were several March 1986 stories about President Ronald Reagan making a “hot mic” comment, not realizing people could hear him. Reporters were asking questions as a frustrated Reagan tried to end a photo op.
Reagan leaned over and told a colleague that the reporters were “Sons of Bitches.” The president got so much flak for what then was viewed as an inappropriate comment that he spent the next several news cycle trying to deny or downplay it.
How mild. How quaint.
These days, I think politicians deliberately say things that are much more inappropriate and shocking. Then they double down on them in social media posts.
Maybe I’m getting old, but I think we live in a much less civil and much more coarse society than we did in 1986.
3. Race in America
After a long and sometimes bitter struggle, in March 1986 Utah’s Governor Norm Bangerter signed a bill recognizing Martin Luther King Day as a state holiday.
MLK’s widow Coretta Scott King visited Salt Lake City a month earlier and personally asked the Utah Legislature to pass the bill. I heard her speak, a story I tell here.
I remember thinking we had turned a positive corner in the long and fraught road of race relations in America. A few years later, we even elected the first Black president, Barack Obama.
As I write this post, my social media news feed is full of stories about our current president sharing a video depicting Obama and his wife as apes. I guess we’ve not quite turned that corner yet.
4. The Arts
The sad news of March 1986 was that the great Western/American artist Georgia O’Keefe died.
More happily, another Tribune news story explained how one of Utah’s most enduring arts group—Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT)—was celebrating its 20th birthday. This year RDT is celebrating its 60th season.
And my daughter Megan—who was not even a twinkle in her father’s eye in 1986—is now part of the RDT dance company.
5. Freedom
In March 1986, Corazon Aquino led the non-violent overthrow of the authoritarian Ferdinand Marcos regime in The Philippines. She prevailed in her unlikely battle for freedom after an election Marcos said he won but that was rife with fraud.
Although the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall still stood, they both would fall soon. It seemed like the world was saying a loud no to authoritarian regimes and an emphatic yes to freedom and democracy.
Today, however, Marcos’ son is the president of The Philippines, an authoritarian Russian regime daily attacks a democratic Ukraine, and far right nationalist parties could soon take power in Germany.
Thomas Jefferson often gets credit for saying, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” but that apt phrase probably originated with either 19th-century abolitionist Wendell Phillips or Irish orator John Philpot Curran. Whoever said it, however, was right.
6. Technology
One prominent local headline in March 1986 reported about the new system to register at the University of Utah. Instead of standing in long lines, students could sign up for classes by using a touch tone phone.
Today, it’s almost impossible to do anything without your phone, but it’s very difficult to talk to an actual human being about anything. Technology has simplified and complicated our life at the same time.
7. Economics
My starting law firm annual salary in 1986 was $36,000…I thought I was rich!
8. Travel
I bought my first new car in March 1986, a brand-new Mazda 323 with no air conditioning. I paid about $7,000. Gas prices ranged from 70 cents to average below 90 cents a gallon that spring. Quadruple (or quintuple) those prices four decades later.
9. Religion
In March 1986, The Tribune’s front pages ran a five-part series on the “unsung heroes” of Easter. Religion seemed like a positive and healthy mainstream part of life.
Of course, that was before the American Culture Wars infected religion, and before the abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church (and many other religious institutions) a few years later.
Four decades later, The New Republic ran a major story about how polarization is destroying mainstream religions. Many people now see involvement in a religion as a sign that you are either in, or not in, their preferred tribe.
10. The environment
Four decades ago, the local newspaper reported that the Great Salt Lake had reached its highest level in a century. In fact, the lake’s water level increased by a whopping 12 feet between 1982 and 1987.
Calling it an environmental emergency, Utah leaders approved and installed massive pumps to lower the lake level.
Today, we still have an environmental emergency, just on the other end of the spectrum.
The lake is near a record low and now we are worried about the risk of toxins from the exposed lakebed poisoning the air. And the Winter of 2025-26 may just be the warmest and driest on record.
11. Sports
Utah and BYU competed in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). They’ve each been in 3 different conferences since then, and today certain college players earn millions of dollars and move from team to team like pros.
I loved college sports back then. Not so much today.
12. Life
I was not featured in any newspaper articles in March 1986, but the big news was I had just met my future wife. I was on the cusp of adult life. The next forty years were an unwritten book.
Today, we have three adult children and two grandchildren, and we soon must figure out how to navigate the world of Social Security, Medicare, and retirement.
I have been blessed, but this life has been a page turner.
Time to get to work writing the last few chapters.
(Photo: my law school graduation photo.)
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022. Mike’s new holiday novel, tentatively titled “The Merry Matchmaker Monks,” will be published in time for Christmas 2026.
Love the conclusion:
“I was not featured in any newspaper articles in March 1986, but the big news was I had just met my future wife. I was on the cusp of adult life. The next forty years were an unwritten book.
Today, we have three adult children and two grandchildren, and we soon must figure out how to navigate the world of Social Security, Medicare, and retirement.
I have been blessed, but this life has been a page turner.
Time to get to work writing the last few chapters.”