Union-Tribune joins 21st Century

In my formative years, when we still pulled wire copy off the teletype machine, we had homemade spikes we would use to, well, spike the copy.

Easy recipe: Take something like a Mason jar lid, fill it full of the molten lead they used in the the linotypes then stick a big-ass nail in it -- pointy end out -- before the metal hardened.

Great tool, except you had to worry about stabbing your palm on it when you were spiking copy.

That went by the wayside when the place had a health and safety inspection one year.

Wish I still had my pica pole.

 

I saw someone sit on one once. I think she used a chair from then on, instead of plopping her ass on someone's desk while talking to someone at the adjacent desk.

 

I used to have lots of border tape on the backs of my shoes.

And that light blue ink on my hands.

Occasional knife cuts from a composing person person, too.

Pica poles are good for scratching backs.

Actually, I know designers who still use pica poles with a CCI system because they work with proof copies.

 

One night in the composing room we were talking about "what's the weirdest place we ever found a piece of border tape?" One of the printers said: "My kid's mouth." It had come off his shoe and his toddler picked it up.

 

First, how long has it been since most papers were actually paseted up. Unbelievably, I've been out of the business 12 years, so obviously, I missed it.

I'm sure I have a pica pole and photo wheel somewhere in my stuff.

I learned the hard way about union shops, but it was at my first job, part time in Wisconsin, and it was the only union shop I ever worked in. I picked up a piece of type on deadline -- like five minutes away -- and everybody the shop put down their knives and walked out for 10 minutes. And we missed deadline.

That was the first, and last, time I ever did that.

I had a lot of great, screaming, nasty fights in composing rooms, but when the last page went out, pretty much all was forgotten. If I carried a grudge against one of those people past the final deadline, I certainly don't remember it. In fact, I'm sure I didn't.

 

Working at a paper in the early 80s, we had a power outage, the computers were down. We were told to write headlines using "count sheets."

It was with great satisfaction when I was able to explain to the rookies on the desk how to write and count heads.

 

Counting heds. Nice.

That's about the one thing on this thread I'm old enough to have learned and done in a real newsroom.

Photo wheels, border tape, etc., were all before my time. Every place I've been has been on a pagination system.

I've always wanted a spike at my desk, though. It'd come in handy for all my proofs. HR discourages that.

 

Don't forget glue pots. Ah, good times!

 

Yeah, roll up the dried rubber cement from the glue pots, fling 'em at each other after deadline.

Or, before deadline, just sniff the glue pots.