 Wayne's TypeMagick
"All About Me"
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On Saturdays, when I was about
six years old, my father took me to work, his print shop,
and put big trays of leads and slugs in front of me to sort. From
this I graduated
to minding my p's and q's. The galleys of lead and wood type
had to be put back in their ordered rows in the font
trays.
I guess dad thought it was a step
up for a big boy, but someone had to melt the lead
that fueled the Linotypes, and Saturdays were there for small boys to
help out.
You may imagine a crucible full of melted metal, the heat radiating
up and out
as a small boy dips in a long, heavy ladle, scooping up heavy lead to
pour into ingots.
In those days type was individually, line by line, hand and machine
made.
Some years passed with time spent
in the shop's bindery, learning the ins and outs
of folding and gathering and packaging the finished products.
Military service and college days came and went, but the shop
remained.
I was now engaged to a beautiful
young woman, and a recent college graduate
with a degree in anthropology, but no foreseeable future for a
married man
when dad offered me a job in his print shop. A step up, I was now an
apprenticed pressman
. I learned paper weights and types; ink colors; how to fine tune a
single color press
to get multi colors to come out exactly where they should be and in
the right hues.
Ten years behind Riobe's and
Davidsons; behind Snappers and Rice's
(these latter two are for those of you who know hand fed, letter
press jobs) and I was ready
for the front office. It was discovered that I could type, and
someone had to be the relief typesetter.
Those early typesetting computers were a far cry from the Desktop
Publishing software driven
marvels of today. All we had to go by were text commands.
The last leg of that long journey
was customer service. Taking in orders from
the front desk, plotting how they would be best run to give the
customer the fastest
and best product, and figuring out an estimate. Finally, the job
costing.
Where the job is looked at and all those figures of time and
materials were added together.
To Sum it all up I have worked
over 20 years in the printing business.
Three years as a military journalist. Two years as a research writer
for a
bilingual organization. I also have two college degrees in
anthropology,
with a focus on alternative healers indigenous native healing
beliefs.
Only one other business have I
poured so much of myself into, and that is
pre-construction tractor work. I've learned and used the following
machinery:
John Deere Backhoe, John Deere 450E six-way dozer, and the CASE 1150
six-way dozer.
There is something about using Zen techniques with the tractors to
re-form land into works of art.
I love reading and
some of the great books I enjoyed reading are: Star Wars
series David Eddings Belgarian series, the Sword and Sorcery
genre,
Ann MCCaffrey's Dragons of Pern, L.E. Modesitt's Recluse series.
Other books: I have read all of Edgar RiceBorroughs
(Tarzan, Johnathan Carter of Mars, etc) books;
all of Louie Lamours westerns; all of Robert Heinlin's
stories.
I liked the Indiana Jones movies
and liked the last movie best.
Sean Connery is a favorite actor of mine, along with Harrison
Ford
Music: Amadeus by Mozart. Blue
Danube Waltz by Strauss.
Carmen Jones by Bizet. I like lots of different kinds of music,.
The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kingston Trio, Ramsey Lewis
Trio.
Me! For
information. I would enjoy hearing from you!
Sign
My Guest Book!
To turn off
music click in middle of Live Update Graphic icon
and hold down mouse button to highlight Pause.
This will Pause the music.
Playing "Carmen"
Web site designed and maintained
by:Susan Sue~Tone
Graphics
suetone@earthlink.net
April 24, 1998