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In The Garden
by Frances Stockman
And from that sweet bird’s throat
Ever comes true merry notes,
Be it fair or rough weather,
And warbles joyfully ever
Music no man ever wrote.
Phototypesetting
According to a recent magazine article the phototypesetting industry expects a 300% growth in the next five years, to $150 million a year. That would be even greater if there were enough printing business to utilize the capabilities of the machines. Phototypesetters are expected to take over 65% of the typesetting market. The slowest growth is expected in the highest speed machines because of their incredible capabilities. Eight of the $300,000 machines, working a single shift, could typeset all the books to be published this year.
Emily’s Clock
I am interested in antique clocks so I travel around the country collecting them. One day I stopped at an old house on a side road and knocked. An elderly man opened the door and I made my usual inquiry about any old clocks. He asked me in, then told me to follow him upstairs.
He said, “One up in Emily’s room I may sell. There is quite a story about Emily. You know she was my great aunt. My people told me about it time and again. Emily had a boy friend, Nicholas, with whom she had fallen madly in love. Now whether Nicholas was of the same mind I’ll never know. One day Nicholas told Emily that he had to be away for a few days but on his return he would knock on her door and they could get married right away.
“Well Emily waited – the days ran into a year but Nicholas never returned. The longer she waited the worse it became. She wouldn’t eat and began to waste away. Over and over she cried out in the night for Nick to come back and knock on her door. She finally died of a broken heart.”
We had reached the room. Looking around I saw a beautiful clock on the mantel. As I walked over to it I noticed an old photograph of a young man right beside it. In faded writing on the picture was written, “To Emily with love – Nick.”
I wound the clock and started the movement. As it began running I was startled and a freeze ran up my back – the silence of the room was broken by the sound, “Nick knock… Nick knock… Nick knock.”
The snappy roll that cowboys and cowgirls sport in the brims of their ten-gallon hats comes not from a patient forming by hand but from a stainless steel spring wire stitched into the brim so it will hold its original shape.
The Pennsylvania Gazette
The following article appeared on the front page of the first issue of The Pennsylvania Gazette that was published by Franklin and Meredith in 1729:
There are many who have long desired to see a good News-Paper in Pennsylvania, and we hope those Gentlemen who are able, will contribute towards the making This such. We ask Assistance, because we are fully sensible, that to publish a good News-Paper is not so easy an Undertaking as many People imagine it to be. The Author of a Gazette (in the Opinion of the Learned) ought to be qualified with an extensive Acquaintance with Languages, a great Easiness and Command of Writing and Relating Things clearly and intelligibly, and in few Words; he should be able to speak of War both by Land and Sea; be well acquainted with Geography, with the History of the Time, with the several Interests of Princes, and States, the Secrets of Courts, and the Manners and Customs of all Nations. Men thus accomplish’d are very rare in this remote Part of the World; and it would be well if the Writer of these Papers could make up among his Friends what is wanting in himself.
Upon the Whole, we may assure the Public, that as far as the Encouragement we meet with will enable us, no Care and Pains shall be omitted, that may make the Pennsylvania Gazette as agreeable and useful an Entertainment as the Nature of the Thing will allow.
When man starts a war
He engages in sin
Strives for victory
And the death of his kin.
Not caring two pins about something dates from the last century, when pins were first machine-made from steel wire. Prior to that they were handmade, costly and scarce. Now because they are inexpensive and abundant it is said that only one pin in every one-hundred manufactured ever wears out. The other ninety-nine just get lost.
Things to Come?
by Frances Stockman
Life is full of queer vicissitudes, Super-methods, Super-production and Super-martkets for the benefit of Super-people? I doubt it.
Take for instance, chickens, frozen vegetables, beef, tomatoes especially, and our daily bread. Just test alone the validity of my growing awareness of the loss of so many things, besides the flavor of foods we used to know and enjoy in the past.
The old time solid ingredients of a loaf of bread, with an aroma that whet our appetite. The rosy glow of a real tomato that outshines the pale imitation ones in your cellophane package. The chicken we have to doctor-up with Shake & Bake flavor; a camouflage to restore its zest. And, some of the bacon, needled with water.
I am suffering with a vertigo at the speed we are, by real or fancied ideas of a Super-generation, accelerating the alteration of the natural laws of nature.
Are we coming to the Super-age when everything will be reduced to another PILL, to substitute for real honest to goodness flavorful food. Sad, but that’s what the Super-Race is headed for. Believe it or not.
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If they refuse to lower the price – then ask for a discount.
Onward
by Josephine H. Voracek
Don’t cry or whimper if the road is rough,
Falter not because stones cut your feet –
For Life is a race and the goal you’ll reach
When all obstacles you bravely defeat.
The Battersean
Set & printed by Howard G. Radcliffe
Petersburg, Va. 23803