
GOOD years, like good men in that song, are hard to find. Comparing 1955 with preceding years, it was a better one. I did not go to the hospital for that annual operation for the first time since 1951, and we were able to publish numbers of Small World, Just Our Type and Sugar and Spice. However, my condition did not heal, requiring weekly (and oftener) trips to the doctor. My good wife has had to change the dressing on my bandaged back morning and night. She has not complained, but I am sure she has not enjoyed this way of life.
Now that another year is well under way, it is back to the hospital once more, which is the reason for this paper. Our second annual Small World is under control, here is a Sugar and Spice, and the copy is ready for a Just Our Type! So, having consulted two specialists, I am prepared for another long “vacation.” The sixth operation promises to be an extensive one, precluding a prediction as to my return to the print shop, but we will try to have that third paper for you by the end of the year, if it means the distaff printer has to do it alone! In the meantime, we are hoping that some day soon a full healing can be effected. – WFH

I Pop My Top
IT IS seldom that anything said in the amateur press gets under my skin. And I do hope my friends will agree when I say it is also seldom I sound my own trumpet. Some remarks made by Alf Babcock in his Kitten last September pierced the epidermis, though. Writing of the item published in the Newark News about him, he says: “this probably rates as the biggest piece of publicity that the NAPA and one of its members have had in the last couple of dozen years.” Well, now. If 1947 is included, I’d like to mention a bit of publicity that I obtained while serving as NAPA prexy. I sold the idea of a layout on amateur journalism to my boss (the editor of the Sunday News Coloroto Magazine) & subsequently to the picture editor of Wide World agency. They took pictures here, of a local club meeting, and in Tony Moitoret’s print shop, Kim Ehrman’s, Helm Spink’s, etc. I gave the names of several amateurs; many received publicity when their local gravure sections used the pictures. And nearly four million Sunday News readers saw the layout on May 25th. Oh, yes, Alf… shortly after we were visited by the Newark News for a story and pictures, which appeared in their Sunday Magazine. They got the feature and decided to give it local coverage, it seems.
Forgive this outburst, please, but when we got our journalism training, we were told to “check the facts.” Maybe the trouble is that Tillie and I gained our experience on newspapers. It may be different in publishing houses. – WFH

Haywood Press
Fair Lawn, N.J.