The "Street Slug" Story

It was an ordinary day. I was heading home from a day of teaching school. Since I teach graphic arts and photography, the school also hires me to do most of the in-house printing that needs to be done during the year and in the summer. Items such as hall passes, tickets, programs and anything that can be handled on our school letterpress. Yep, a letterpress. The kind that you pushed to get it started and a belt would keep the press running as you hand-feed paper into the press. You needed to set type by hand and lock it in a chase which fit in the bed of the press so you could run multiple copies of what you needed. Now you're talking ancient times here. Late 60s to late-70s I taught the kids how to use these presses. If I had a larger job I would visit Beitzel Composition Co. on Ross St. in Lancaster and Bob would set the type on a linotype machine for me. This machine had a typewriter keyboard and you would type a document and small letters would fall into place. Molten lead would fall into this mold and would form a line of type (linotype), also known as a slug. This is how newspapers were printed for years and Edison referred to the machine as the 8th wonder of the world. Bob was my baseball coach when I played Midget ball and I always went to him if I needed a job set in type for my press at school. I usually stopped at home after school to see who wanted to go see Bob with me. Always someone went because Bob had a big box with candy in it for the kids in the neighborhood. Today my daughter Brynn is going with me to pick up some type that Bob set for graduation announcements. She's only 6 years old, but enjoys going anywhere with me. Out of the car and in Bob's door before I close my car door. Bob saw us coming and greets her with the candy box. She picks a piece, Bob hands me the package of type and out the door we go. I have to help Brynn into the back seat and put her seat belt on her so I place the type on the top of the car while I do that. Same routine I always do. Well, by now you guessed what I forgot to do today. Yep, I buckled her in her seat, closed the door, went around to my side and hopped in the car. Started the car, backed out of my parking space and headed home. We were home for a while when all of a sudden something struck me and I started to sweat. Where is my type? Holy crap, or something like that, I yelled. Out the door to the car. Not in the car or on the car. I got my keys and off I went, tracing my way back to Bob's place. There in the middle of the street at Beitzel Composition Company was my job, scattered all over the street. Cars had smashed most of the lead lines of type flat. Gathered up what I could and took them inside to show Bob. I walked in the door and placed them on his counter and said, "Do you give a 30 return on this stuff?" It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - Letterpress at top and linotype machine at bottom.