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Dream On, My Sweet!!
by Billy Hill
COME WHERE my love lies dreaming
Of the happy, happy years to be;
A flowered pathway, white paint gleaming,
A bungalow for three!
Cheery chintzes, carpets to the wall,
Air conditioned, copper plumbing,
Electric kitchen filled with all
Those handy gadgets humming!
With roses growing ‘round the door
And bluebirds nesting in our tree,
We’ll be homeless nevermore –
In our bungalow built for three!
(Lie still, my love, do not move that flap!
Although I have a heater in my lap
And sixteen blankets ‘round my ears,
This tent’s the coldest place I’ve lived in years!!)
Let it no longer be said we do not publish contributions from the pens of our fellow amateurs. We are happy to present this month a little poem by our own Billy Hill, of Jumpin Lake, Wisconsin.
The Kitchen Stove emits a live coal as A. Walrus looks on the brighter side of life.
Thought for October
by A. Walrus
Lift up your heads, ye downcast souls,
To nobler heights aspire!
Think how a match can start from scratch
And set the world on fire!
NO, THE LAW of supply and demand has not been repealed, as one Milwaukee motorist who took delivery of a new car discovered. The automobile itself was correctly priced, but under the guise of “optional equipment and accessories” the dealer had installed on the car every dingbat and whatsit he could lay hold of. The list started with a tail pipe extension at $1 and went on down the line to a fancy radio and antenna at $67.77, omitting only leather seat covers at $39.95 simply because the dealer was fresh out of them.
Optional? The purchaser had the choice of taking the car with all those gadgets billed at $239.54 (on which the dealer profited handsomely) or driving his old car until the demand for autos so equipped fell off. To make matters worse, the allowance on his old card, which was worth at least $300, was figured at $175. The whole deal was strictly within the laws of the land and in accord with the principles of Freshman Economics that government is not the final arbiter in fixing prices.
SP IS NOT ALL OUT for ajay, circulating in two associations, National and American. We joined National chiefly to add prestige to an 8-page magazine we published for about 100 names on our Christmas card list. The August number appeared in the NAPA bundle for that month and promptly there were complaints of our lack of ajay.
Well, one thing led to another and before long we had not only switched SP over to ajay but now correspond so much with other members that we may have to suspend publishing (no loss) to keep abreast of our mail. We had a swell system, that of answering everything on the day of its arrival, but it broke down. It is really grand fun. Even Spink writes, which in some quarters is considered a minor miracle!
We should for the purposes of the record report that there was considerable lost motion at the start, it being some time before we could find out who’s who or what is what. Alf Babcock’s Handbook for New Members is must reading for the neophyte, but Alf was not told we had joined. Not until we read George Young’s Hobby Shopper did we know such a booklet existed!
The moral of this, we believe, is that the association should have an Instructor, a perennial officer – not one elected yearly and therefore always a new one trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do – who shall have the duty, or rather the pleasure, of taking the new member in hand and properly initiating him into the active participation in ajay.
Also we’d like to see an alphabetical list of members instead of the present geographical one that gives us a headache every time we consult it. And will someone please mimeograph a list of ajay papers and who publishes them and how they are circulated?
There must be some less painful method than sending out a raft of post card inquiries!
* * * *
October has been a grand month in Wisconsin this year. I am back on the road again for the first time since 1944, so the weather will once more be a subject of lively interest. As you are doubtless aware, the winters in Wisconsin are rugged.
* * * *
ERNIE PITTARO’S Tabloid recalls the riotous parodies we used to publish at Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Every April I found The Reserve Weekly parading under a name and format closely resembling some Cleveland newspaper – which gave us a mad, joyous opportunity to ridicule all the stuffed shirts in sight both on and off the campus, slightly altering the names of our victims to soften our blows.
* * * *
Do any of you know how to replenish those skimpy fonts of type the amateurs struggle with?
Printers!!
FROM REPORTS reaching us, many of our fellow amateur printers are laboring with outmoded or inadequate presses and short fonts of battered type. Are we going to retire from the affray when Josephine and her ancient sisters can’t stand another weld and the last worn-out character is reluctantly dropped into the hellbox, and without a struggle quit the field of battle to let mimeographers make merry in our absence?
Or shall we re-form our ranks under the starry banners of our amateur press associations and make a genuine effort to work out some of our problems together at least until the present unsettled period of shortages is safely past?
Does anyone know where some good weight fonts of used type may be obtained at a modest price? Isn’t there a good friend of ajay who can cast or have cast a goodly supply of monotype cheaply (the current commercial quotation is 70 cents a pound) or knows of a source where dead monotyped matter suitable for distribution into type cases may be bought at or about the price of metal? IS THERE ANYONE?
We should like to hear from our readers on this subject – and shall be glad to pass along all information received. Just address us a penny post card. Already one ajay printer has expressed a need for 50 pounds of 10-point Century Expanded monotype or foundry. Does that gentleman in the front row have some to sell?
Strictly Personal is published by Emerson Duerr, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who is a member of the National and of the American Amateur Press Associations. He asks to be put on the mailing lists of all amateur papers. Set mostly in 10-point Bradford cast by ATF in 1905 and thumped off on Columbine, a 6 x 9 Columbian No. 2 patented in 1878 and built so long ago no living printer can recall having seen one. Foot power, now equipped with motor.