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Another First – APC Goes to ‘H’

In this section of Levittown where the well-known address of 47 Hardy Road is situated, all of the streets begin with the letter H – there’s a Hale, Hydrangea, Homestead, and – ask Hazel how confusing it can be late at night – there’s a Handy, too!

The APC ventured into the maze of Levittown for the first time today and met to talk, print, eat, and somehow set type for the APC News.

Finding their way were:

Harlers: Ed, Jan, Curt, Holly
Moitorets: Vic, Ro, Carolyn, Cathy, Jackie, Alan
Segals: Harold, Hazel, Nancy, David, Wendy
Hustvedt: Erling
Smith: Nita Gerner
Babcocks: Alf, Helen
Wessons: Sheldon C., Helen, Sheldon P., David, Pam

Copy Boy! Copy!

Ever attend an APC meet where copy was ready to be set? Neither have we, but this could be the thing of the future. In the meantime, the meetings will start with nothing and proceed to four pages – of nothing. (More to come:)

This is an APC Meeting?

Vic and Curtis are out front tossing a football. Erling and Sheldon P. are playing croquet in the back. Sheldong is walking the dog. Guitar players are Carolyn, Nancy, and David Wesson (sharing one guitar!). The women are yakking and messing with dishes. Alf and Ed are looking at first-day covers.

Who’s setting type?
Who’s setting type, indeed?
No one, it sets itself.

Next step will be a computerized APC meeting. The computer will be programmed with the contents of all previous issues, and brief character studies of all persons who have attended or are likely to attend future meetings. At each session, the computer will be fed the names of people who show up, and it will automatically grind out a tape with copy. For a few extra dollars, it will set type for us. Then the printers can just sit around and drink beer. The women, of course, will be little affected. They will just keep on gabbing.

In case any members wonder how this paper happens to be printed so beautifully on the Harlers’ Press, it was not. Harold is carrying the type back to Bristol and will print it on his trusty Pearl. So you don’t have to have a press to issue an APC News – but it helps.

Towels, Anyone?

Rowena: Will someone join me in a cup of tea?
Wesson: I’ll be glad to, but do you think there’s room for both of us?

Page 2 and 3

Wesson Moves Cole’s Shop to Glen Ridge

Tim Thrift’s press – the 8×12 C&P on which Aonian and the latter-day Lucky Dog were printed – now sits next to the prehistoric 9×13 Peerless in the Wesson printshop. The C&P and all of the Oakwood Press printshop were bequeathed to Sheldon C. Wesson by the late Ed Cole, together with his collection of amateur journals.

There is a lot of history embodied in this equipment, which comes (in part) from Frank Roe Batchelder and Will Bates Grant, in addition to the Cole and Thrift type.

The three Wesson men loaded the Opel station wagon and a U-haul trailer and crawled down from Newtonville as slowly as the law would allow.

Wesson will complete the final Olympian, as Cole had requested. It had been “in press” for 17 years. All of the copy, and about nine pages already set in type by Ed, were found in the shop.

Another Another First – APC Sports
Not By “Red” Smith

The touch-football game has been going on outside for two hours. It looks like Vic and Curt versus all the other kids. The football is getting a terrible beating. So are the players. At the end of the fifth quarter (already under lights) the score is alleged to be 6-6 in favor of the kids, who are winning because they holler louder. At this moment it is unclear whether the objective (Vic’s) is to wear the kids down and make them controllable or (the kids’) to wear Vic down and make him controllable.

Perplexing Paradox

The Frederick NAPA Convention voted official “displeasure” with two officers, President Notman & Mailer Harler. Why was Ed Harler given this bouquet of wilted cabbage leaves for his hard work in getting out the first six bundles in 1966 on time and providing an admirably complete, detailed report to the Convention, when Roy Lindberg, Bureau of Critics Chairman, not only submitted no report at all, but had not carried out the requirements of his office in recommending items to the Recorder for the Laureate competitions? So, due in large measure to Roy’s delinquency, the Laureates fizzled, but Roy got no vote of displeasure. He was robbed! – VAM

On Naming a Printshop

Incidental intelligence developed today during Shep Wesson’s interrogation of Erling Hustvedt:

SCW: Tell me the truth now – did you name it the Frigate Press because you happened to have that cut of the old sailing ship on hand?

EHH: No, I named it first and then found the cut.

SCW: Boy – that’s doing it the hard way!

Page 4

Alf’s Cat-y-corner

After remarks at the Frederick Convention I was not sure the Wessons would appear in Levittown, but they did, calm, cool, and collected.

The perplexing state of the Fossils and the non-appearance of The Fossil were discussed, but no satisfactory solution was uncovered. – APB

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