Sorry for the huge friggin lapse in writing in this 'blog. I've been busy with work, life, and just not writing. So shoot me, okay?
I recently had a conversation on the phone that got off onto the winding road of things that we saw as kids, that kids will never see again. One of those items were mimeograph machines? Remember those? I have a good memory of the huge beasts from elementary school, great reams of purple damp handouts coming into our classrooms, young students getting high from the fumes...
Ah, those were the days...
My father was a high school teacher before he retired, and I remember as a child, going into the English teachers room with him on days when I would go with him to work, for whatever reason. I wanted *so* bad to be able to play with the mimeograph machine. Turn that handle, have the paper come out, with WHATEVER I WANTED printed on it.
The power would have gone straight to my head.
That's why I write a journal like this. Or, I should say, why I pretend to write a journal.
Some of the main things going on in my life right now are preparations for my wedding, which will be happening in slightly over a year. My fiance and I have our location, our officiant, our DJ, our photographer, and most of the other *big* details worked out. Now, we just have to get the minor details worked out.
Another fun part of my life is the study of my family tree. I keep on pushing the generations back, a little bit at a time. I'm going home to NJ in March to do some more research at local libraries down there. I hope to find information on my mom's side of the family. They come from Elizabeth, which is a big port city near New York. I'll go to the state archives in Trenton, some libraries at Rutgers, and also try to meet up with some of my older relatives, to see what they know about some of these great-grandparents I've never met. I'm also on a photographic search, because I don't even have images of some of these people.
Anyway, I'm off to get lunch. Tally ho!
Before the printer was a peripheral attachment, he was a person, and printing was a craft, not a menu item.
For a trip down memory-lane to Junior High Print Shop (or to see what you missed if OSHA closed the school shop before you got there), and to see where it evolved from and to in industrial use, check out The Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass.
Bill wdr@world.std.com
Disclaimer -- you'll find my email address embedded in that site, I'm the ex-Webmaster and still assist the Collections Committee with eMail issues.
