In a story about the birth of the Fischer quints in 1963, the American News reported the mother's weight.
The front-page story described Mary Ann Fischer, 30, as a "5-foot, 6-inch, 150-pound redhead," who was "justifiably tired after her ordeal."
There is undeniable interest in the size of a woman who just gave birth to quintuplets. Today, though, the media rarely disclose a woman's weight.
That policy is probably good for world peace. Women can be very protective of their personal statistics.
Certain women would keep their ages out of the paper at all costs. Some people think the greatest penalty for committing a crime is not a fine or jail sentence. It's having your age revealed in the paper.
You'd be surprised, in writing about people, how often the age issue can be sticky. After I interview people, I sometimes get a phone call from the interview subjects asking that I not use their ages. As a reporter, that's tough because sometimes a person's age is the only interesting part of a story. When you write a story, the only response you hear sometimes is, "I didn't know so-and-so was 58."
At times, negotiations take place before a story is written. I once wrote about a local woman who is six years older than her very prominent local husband. In the end, I agreed to omit that fact, which just about killed me.
A woman's weight, though, is clearly a sensitive topic.
When I told my wife about the prize given to the winner of Frederick's wife-carrying contest, she was outraged. The winning couple is awarded the woman's weight in beer.
"No woman wants to have her weight publicly revealed," my wife said.
She settled down, though, when I told her the creative people of Frederick found a simple, yet innovative, way to measure a woman's weight. They use a teeter-totter like a scale, adding beer to one seat until the woman and the beer level off.
Age and weight aren't the only numbers that are problematic. A co-worker told me her husband lied about a portion of his ACT score before they were married. It wasn't until after the wedding that she found out the real number.
Another co-worker was surprised when her boyfriend recently told her his ACT score. But they're still dating.
I can see the ACT topic coming up during spirited discussions down the road.
The biggest issue, though, might be age. I seem to be more guilty than most reporters of asking people how old they are.
So I probably had it coming when a guy turned the tables on my wife and me this week.
A guy, who was serious, said to my wife, "So is that your father that writes those columns?"
That hurt. Especially since she's four years older than I am.
But it made my wife laugh.
Jeff Bahr is an American News reporter. His email address is jbahr@aberdeennews.com. His phone number is 605-622-2320.
