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Continuing the Craft of Letterpress
Hand Set Type, Hand Fed Press
Languages
by Navajo
University of Iowa Student
I am calling your attention to your gross misspelling of the name of our very important American Indian tribe.
(In the poem Navaho Interlude.)
Are you ignorant the “j” in Spanish sounds like your “h”?
We rightly expect publicly a correction and apology promptly.
How would you like it if your name was deliberately incorrectly published Lorn R. Jerrie Jerinjer?
Or you were referred to as a Jerman, instead of German?
We do not deserve your superior attitude. There are over 200,000 of this western tribe. Many are better educated than some snobbish white persons. Many are engineers, medical doctors, scientists and lawyers.
You white people have down trodden us, undeservedly, far too long.
Far Away Readers
I sent copies of Cowboy in the Wheat and Your Own Shortcut Shorthand, and some of these People Watchers to Australia with John and Rea Saxby, who visited her cousin, Beth (Mrs. Mark) Smith, in Iowa City.
Communicating
The Soviets and Americans Walking for Peace stopped in Iowa City during the holiday weekend of the Fourth of July.
Some of the Walkers were guest speakers at the Sunday morning church services.
The three guests of the First Christian Church were: Achot Nashibov, journalist from Moscow, and Nancy Matthews and Caroline Wood. The two women live in California. Both have made Peace trips to the Soviet Union.
At the potluck luncheon after the service, I ate at the same table as the Russian newsman.
He speaks good English, and has learned French, German, Latin, and some Japanese.
He answered questions about education, working conditions, family life, and many other things.
Often, listeners made comments, like, “That is not much different from what we do here.”
I sent to Moscow with him copies of my books, Cowboy in the Wheat and Your Own Shortcut Shorthand, as well as a year of People Watcher. He was especially interested in the shorthand.
Summer
by Dr. Jana Kreuter
Summer is commitment to
Life and a Joy –
Skies with the beaming sun
Remembering a choir
Singing the anthem of
“Better Be…”
You and me together –
We are not a dream…
Colors and pastels – frame
Us to touch –
A face of the hot summer
With a body of the land.
Flowers without the names
Perfectly match –
Into your soft smile –
“Do you understand…?”
A choir celebrates – salutes
Applauding life –
Nothing is important –
Except you…
Summer does,
Summer makes –
Please, let me find…
Together. One by one.
The glory of Truth…
Same Names
by Remelda Gibson
Congratulations on your Golden Date.
Sorry about Anita’s confinement to a wheel chair.
Your “grands” have nice names. Three of them are the same as three of mine.
I like “man-sounding” names for boys.
Craftsman
The front page masthead is one of the choices that Eugene Remignanti designed for me 15 years ago, soon after I started this publication.
Baseball Legends
I sat on the floor of the Prairie Lights book store, among University students, to hear W. P. Kinsella read selections from The Further Adventures of Slugger McBatt, and from The Valley of the Schmoo.
Bill and Ann, his wife, from British Columbia, in Canada, were back in Iowa in connection with the filming of his award winning book Shoeless Joe.
They say they are pleased with the way the producer and director and actors portray his Iowa City story about baseball.
Movie stars include Burt Lancaster, James Earl Jones, Kevin Costner, and Amy Madigan.
Closer
by Alice D. Kelley
Happy greetings for your 50 years together.
People Watcher is one of my favorites in the monthly bundles. I enjoy your homey little scenes.
Now you’re approaching the 200th issue.
High School Reunion
by Jean Wiggins
I’ve been away many years,
And I see as one forgetting
The flat prairies
Where I can view farmhouses
In groves of trees
Miles and miles beyond.
I see the dark loam seeming to rise,
To merge with the sky,
See the purplish haze
At the line of meeting –
This haze of memory I stand in
Grasping hands of those long unseen,
Unheard, our stories
Lost in the din of voices
Telling other lost tales.
Coming home again, I see
The emptiness, the somberness of the land,
Hear the clipped speech of the farmers.
It is strange that I once lived here
In this dull village
On the prairie, stranger that I forget
How it was
Though it remains the way it was.
I forget what it must have been to me –
Then –
But whatever it was
I accept
And lift my glass.
Variations
I often get mail addressed to Loren or Lawrence. Or to Miss Lauren.
I am used to Gary, Gerry, Geri, Jerry, or Jeri.
We hear Geringer mis-pronounced four or more different ways.
Our name is confused with Garringer, Gerringer, Gehring, Gerner, Gingerich, Gingrich, Gingery, or Gringer.
Tournament
I was startled to hear “Coralville, Iowa” mentioned on television, as far away as Nashville, Tennessee.
During Nashville Now George “Goober” Lindsey told Ralph Emery his next date was golfing in the Amana V.I.P.
One of the pictures in the Iowa City Press-Citizen was of Goober with Fuzzy Zoeller, who scored 66 to Tom Watson’s 65.
The Fourth of July
by Virginia Bonnici
You’d assumed our penances in Julys
In the opiate heat when the fireflies
Hypnotized, when ragtime paired the grooms and brides
With lipstick sighs and pure green eyes
And the will-o-the-wisps after midnight lit
The wheel whose wiles ascribed your ails
The tarot readers against whom we railed
As you lip read the blind man’s braille.
But until the hysterics of Julys were sustained
Sympathies couldn’t be exchanged.
We were giddy from the sultry air
The curfewless months of ephemeral affairs
We wore costume jewels in smoke-filled rooms
We mocked the verbiage apologists used.
Gathering
by William F. Haywood
Congratulations to you and Anita on your Golden Wedding Anniversary! We’re glad that you had so many of your family present to help you celebrate.
We are constantly amazed that you are able to publish People Watcher every month, especially setting the type by hand and feeding the press.
You and Jake Warner make the rest of us look like a bunch of loafers!
Quick Deal
People depended on Anita baking big batches of kolaches for picnics, family reunions, potluck dinners, and bake sales.
She contributed several dozen to an AARP (Retired Persons) fund raiser, and, before the sale started, one man purchased the entire boxful.
Cow Town
An autograph party for Merle Kessler’s social critic book, Ian Shoales’ Perfect World, was held in the Prairie Lights book store.
Merle’s comments originated in the stage shows of the five writer-actors of the Duck’s Breath Mystery Theater. Their combined and individual comedy acts are presented on radio, television, and in books.
The Ducks returned to this familiar setting to make their movie, Zarda, Cow from Hell!
Bakery
by Martha E. Shivvers
Congratulations on your 50th wedding Anniversary!
I like the unique idea of serving kolaches and home made cookies.
I enjoyed your book, Cowboy in the Wheat, so much I did not want it to end.
It is being read, right now, by a brother-in-law.
People Watcher
Amateur Journal
2,500 circulation
Subscription price membership in an ajay club:
Amalgamated Printers’ Association
American Amateur Press Association
National Amateur Press Association
United Amateur Press
Lauren R. ‘gehry’ Geringer
Iowa City, Iowa 52240-0548