editoradmin
Handset Type, Handfed Press. Continuing the Craft of Letterpress
Line of Duty
by Alice Meyer
We had planned to fly to Montana for Marvin’s 50th college reunion, June 11-13, and for our granddaughter Diane’s college graduation – from the same college.
Saturday, June 6, we received word that our son Jim’s Mercy Flight air-ambulance helicopter was missing during a thunderstorm on a return flight from Glacier Park to Great Falls.
We flew out Sunday.
The wreckage was found June 9th. All aboard (two doctors and a nurse were with him) had died instantly.
It has been an unbelievable nightmare.
The outpouring of love from friends has been tremendous. We have received over 130 notes and letters. I don’t know how we would manage without friends.
James was a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, and among the decorations he was awarded was the Distinguished Flying Cross with three Oak Leaf Clusters.
He has been a Mercy Flight pilot since 1983.
He died doing what he loved most.
Hot Topic
Several people have said the high temperatures and lack of normal rain during June and July remind them of the summer of 1936.
That was the year I left the farm in Montana, after a series of poor crops of wheat.
I did not know until later that was one of the most dry periods in Montana records.
Iowa City has been having the highest thermometer readings in the state of Iowa. 80, 90 to 100 every day. Some reports of 103. Unofficially up to 109.
Rain gauges caught 1.19 inches during July. Normal average has been 4.88 inches.
David Kanellis wrote in his column in the Press-Citizen that Lake Okoboji in northern Iowa got 11 inches.
Our Own Warrens
I mow right over rabbit nests without seeing them, until after the babies leave the pit in the grass.
Sometimes they are born just outside the edge of the garden.
This spring, the hollow of a vacated nest appeared six feet from the wall of our house.
Recently, five tiny bunnies scrambled from between the roots of the huge maple tree on our front lawn.
“September Morn”
by Merry Harris
How they maligned you,
Lovely lady of long ago,
Calling you lewd, lascivious,
Attributing to you the filth
In the eye of the beholder.
Behind you, the misty lake
In which you wade, au naturel,
Chastely hiding your “private parts”
(Which today’s bikinis would hardly cover)
The misty lake proclaims your innocence.
But gruff Tony Comstock, suppressor of vice,
Saw not the misty lake
Nor the child-like innocence
Of a dawn-bather. He saw only
A naked woman, enticing and suggestive.
He tried to suppress you, but could not.
Yet you became the butt of tasteless jokes,
The subject of cartooned postcards.
Despite your detractor, loveliness survives:
Man’s worst assaults have not befouled
Your innocence… Today you are displayed
In the Metro. And because of you
The artist who made your loveliness immortal
Died rich and famous… As for Anthony Comstock,
Suppressor of vice – who remembers him?
Immortality
by Jean Graham
I live in poetry, sunsets
And home baked bread.
In a child’s smile when a
New discovery comes to his head.
In the music of the world.
In a stiff breeze when
The flag is unfurled.
I live in freshly plowed ground
And the prairie when it’s brown.
In the pages of your Bible open
Or a loving word well spoken.
I am eternal as the snowflake
Or a shell washed upon the shore.
Know that I am in the earthquake
That brings change forever more.
Enduring Ripples
by Katharyn Machan Aal
Recently I have realized my debt to you for my interest in the 1880s; I’m certain my reading aloud chapters of your Slow Trigger in 1975 at the Iowa City Creative Reading Series “triggered” much of my enthusiasm for learning more about that time period.
The Redwing monologues now number 104. They’re set in Central / Western New York State, but some of my feeling for the period comes from your novel.
Piece Works
When buildings had to be torn down, the boards and the bricks used to be removed separately. Nails were pulled, and bricks were cleaned.
When we lived in our first house, at 1312 Keokuk Street (now the parking lot of the Assembly of God church) Corwin, my brother, helped me build a garage of a heap of scrap lumber I bought for $300.
Feed the Animals
We have always eaten vegetables from our garden as grocery saving variety to summer meals.
The destructive competition of wildlife is very discouraging.
I have tried blood meal, moth balls, and commercial repellents.
Squirrels dig seed, like sweet corn, out of the loose soil.
As soon as rows of beans, peas, turnips, radishes, beets, carrots, lettuce, swiss chard, kohl-rabi, and salsify sprout above ground, rabbits cut them back.
Rabbits feed on cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, broccoli, egg plant, green pepper, and sweet potato plants I buy and set out.
In spite of repellents, squirrels rip the husks and nibble the kernels of sweet corn before the ears are ready to cook and serve as corn-on-the-cob.
We cannot allow popcorn to ripen on the stalks.
Birds and squirrels destroy sunflowers before the seeds are ready to harvest.
Grade Points
by J. Ed. Newman
I do, indeed, read each issue of People Watcher and enjoy it!
Demolition
by Margaret E. Clover
Like the scavenger
That descend on broken carcasses
I watch the huge machines
Bite into the roof top
Tear out great hunks and
Fling them to the side.
Entering to break down walls
Shattering stairwells
Demolishing the lifetimes
Of all who have lived and loved within.
I see in the rising dust
The happy play of many children.
I hear in the crashing of timbers
And the shatter of glass
The many voices of sorrow weeping
For the dreams that have vanished.
How swiftly life runs its course.
How swiftly the new arises to replace the old.
Live it well!
Live it full!
And there will be no sorrow when it is gone.
History Repeats
by Mary Ann Henn
I am a child and there is a war going on. Grandpa keeps shaking his head and saying “Tsk-tsk! This younger generation! What’s the world coming to?” He doesn’t mean me. I’m too young to count. He means young people who are pushed into living fast because young men have to go to war and they may never come back. I don’t know what they do, but it must really be bad, because Grandpa knows.
Now I am not a child any more and I read of robberies and rapes and murders, every day. I watch TV and find myself shaking my head like Grandpa, saying, “Tsk-tsk! What is the world coming to?”
People Watcher
Amateur Journal
2,500 circulation
Subscription price
membership in an ajay club:
Amalgamated Printers’ Association
American Amateur Press Association
British Amateur Press Association
National Amateur Press Association
United Amateur Press
Lauren R. ‘gehry’ Geringer
Iowa City, Iowa 52240-0548
Colophon
Type: 10 point Century Schoolbook
Headings: 24 Continental Cursive
24, 18, 14 Lydian
18, 14 Century Schoolbook
Paper: 20 pound Cascade MP bond
Ink: Von Son rubber base 10850
Press: 1890s Jones Gordon 10×15