Historical April 1995 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Since 1972 when I first became involved with our newspaper, then called The Paper, I have been variously entangled in its preparation, production, financing, and/or oversight.
This may not always have been in its best interest, but I look back on it with great affection.
When The Paper was first started, it was led by people with real journalistic credentials. Printing was done first at Washington University, then at Nordmann Printing. By the time Chris Lange and I got hold of it, costs were mounting and income was not.
We had to make some cuts in order to continue, so we decided to forego typesetting and type it ourselves. Remember, this was before the phrase ” home computer” ever crossed anyone’s mind, much less appeared in print.
With the generous donation of a pretty classy electric typewriter from Joe Botz’s company, we typed all the copy in little columns. Old timers will remember the distinctly homemade look we achieved. What you may not know is that we typed it on adding machine tape in order to judge the column widths as we typed.
It makes me laugh just to think about those sessions. Eventually we built up enough cash to return to typesetting.
We went to a neighbor, Lurline Hogsett, who had opened a computerized typesetting shop on Skinker at Delmar.
I remember schlepping my pre-schooler and his baby sister back and forth to pick up copy and get corrections.
We developed quite a relationship with Lurline who was always helpful and tolerant.
In those days we created all the headlines using “press type, ” letters which those with good eyes, steady hands and nerves, and reliable spelling skills could rub onto faint blue lines until they could stand it no longer. Not occasionally we had trouble having enough copy to fill four pages, much less eight, so we developed a library of magazines from which we borrowed illustrations of all kinds, filling the holes left by insufficient copy with these eclectic cuttings.
I remember referring to this practice as “graphic-ing it up.” It’s still hard for me to read a magazine without considering what some little drawing would look like as filler at the end of a story. Now, of course, there is electronic clip art, but when you’re in a pinch, it’s still hard to find just the right illustration.
A month or two ago, I looked everywhere for some kind of clock to use at the end of one of Tom’s “In Your Ear” stories.
The best I could get from my clip art collection was an hourglass– hardly a clock, but it filled a space. Among our more sophisticated layout people there is a conviction that “white space is our friend, ” and though I am sure their judgment is superior on this matter, the unfilled holes still unsettle me, rather like a long silence at a cocktail party.
In picking through my collection of old issues, all of which I have seen many times before, I was struck by how many things I had remembered incorrectly, almost forgotten, or never realized.
These back issues don’t really make me nostalgic for the “good old days, ” probably because there was so much hard work that was being done.
They do remind me of how much can be accomplished by young people who don’t know any better!
In the early days we had a passion to continue producing the paper no matter what, which remains with me today despite the fact that I don’t get as many “miles per gallon” anymore.
I persist in the belief that we need our little paper, and I am just too stubborn to allow our publishing “streak” to end. Going through the archives has reinforced my determination to continue to be involved with it. So much of the goodness, talent, humor, and generosity of the people of our community is shared and recorded in it that it stands as its own special monument to our continuing success story.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April 1995.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1995_04.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
