Back in the day, the personals were filled with men and women looking for a date. They read something like, "SWF looking for man," or "35Y.O. male looking for special woman for walks on beach."
Funny stuff.
Reading them lately, though, you won't find any of the potential date opportunities that used to grace the pages. People now primarily use dating Web sites, although some dating personals can still be seen in weekly entertainment magazines.
Personals haven't gone the way of the dodo, however. They can still be read pretty much every day in a newspaper, including this one. But now they read almost like a most-wanted poster.
"Anyone knowing the whereabouts of: ...," is pretty much how they all begin. Sometimes there is one name. In one that came from a local attorney, I counted 21 names.
Apparently a lot of lawyers nowadays use the personals to find people needed for civil matters. It might be the reading of a will or some claim that needs to be settled. For the lawyers, it sounds more like business than it does personal. But I guess for the individuals involved, it is of a personal nature.
I was talking with someone from a law office yesterday, and was told that since Hurricane Katrina, a lot more people are being sought to pick up claims and such. So many people were displaced or have moved since the storm that it's hard to track down people that may have filed a suit five years ago, or whatever the case may be.
At other times, personals are placed to try and find a witness for an upcoming trial. It's interesting the stories that might be behind something as seemingly innocent as a classified ad in the personals. With the law office person I spoke with, I found out that firm was looking for claimants from the Bogalusa chemical spill.
Anyway, all this thought about personals and searching for individuals got me thinking maybe I should place a classified in the personals. I wouldn't be looking for specific individuals to settle a claim, per se. Rather, I'd be looking for individuals to share their stories for news or feature articles.
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