Remember When Michael Dukakis Came To Rockford?

It was October 27, 1988. I was 9 years old and didn't know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat but I knew this was a pretty big deal. 

Democratic presidential candidate Governor Dukakis was coming to Harlem High School on his campaign tour. This excited me mainly because we were being allowed to miss some class to take a bus up to the high school to watch the speech.  If I'm being completely honest I think I remember playing Mattel Electric Football on the bus ride over better than the actual speech. Thankfully I found a clip in the C-SPAN archives of the appearance. I'm not sure if this was before or after the tank incident but everyone seems to be having a good time.

It's nice seeing old footage of the high school before the remodel and I give extra credit to the C-SPAN producer who used the uncommon spelling "Mechesney Park" in the video. Hopefully Donald Trump makes a campaign stop in the stateline this year and someone can blog about it in the year 2045.

Unfortunately C-SPAN will not let the video be embedded in this blog. Click here to watch it. You should, just to see the hairstyles of the area's finest circa 1988.