July2006

http://www.BurlingameAvenue.Biz

I had a Superior Rotary Printing Press, Model Ace No. 8405

with rubber slot mounted type when I was a ten year old Minnesota boy living by the Lake of the Isles.

To set up the press for printing I had to pick each letter of rubber type with a pair of tweezers, then slide each one down a grooved metal slot in the same order that you might type them.

A system styled after the real big press printers of the day which used lead type with automated pickers.

When the metal slot was loaded with type it had to be mounted on the press by wedging it between the two rubber edges of the roller with the use of a small pry hook.

Each slot was one line of type.

There could be up to 16 lines of type. (up to? sounds big)

There could be only 16 lines of type.

This limitation lent pressure for brevity of text, that is for sure.

It was slow, tedious and limited, but lots of fun for a ten year old boy. And it showed me much about process and life, although I was not aware that I learned that at the time.

I attempted to print a little newspaper dealing with stories that occurred in the lush and lazy lake atmosphere of 1950’s residential Minneapolis.

"Dog found by Cedar Lake canal” as I remember one story.

Difficult it was, however, to make much of a newspaper with 16 lines of type on a 5 inch by 7 inch piece of paper.

But it was fun.

These memories came to me as I was sitting at my computer

and thinking of doing this newsletter.

"The more things change, the more they remain the same"

(those old axioms stick around for a reason)

And I traced back through more of this history in my life, thin though it may be in this regard.

Remembering the time at the College of San Mateo when I had assumed the helm of Free Forum, the alternative press newspaper. Mostly because the creative originators had graduated and and gone on to greater glory and someone needed to keep this independent viewpoint outlet going.

Later, in my business life, my salesman days, I had produced catalogs and various sales newsletters.

More recent, at my "regular job" I had noticed that the company employee newsletter was very poorly produced.

So I had offered several issues of an alternative version (more and better graphics, punchier stories) which many of the employees seemed to enjoy. Management, however, seemed to fear my opinionated independence and quashed any support for this project.

Finally I have recently produced an online travelogue titled

Journeys Into China which developed out of emailing to my friends descriptions about the trips I was taking to China.

It is not as though I have been prolific or even accomplished anything major or important or even interesting.

I was not even consciously aware of this trail of events, this tendency toward going to press, until sitting here and looking up high on my shelf in my studio and seeing my original little Superior Rotary Printing Press (Yes, I still have it from 1954! ).

But now I think there is something that compels me to engage in these endeavors.

Not exactly a calling, but somehow I do feel drawn.

So here I go again with this and possibly another newsletter.

BurlingameAvernue.Biz will feature stories and pictures of events in and around the Burlingame California area.

It will be primarily light-hearted and eclectic.

I am not adverse to showing an occasional real news story,

but I am not out to compete with the news industry.

Please sign up to subscribe and I will email to you each edition of this publication.

Feel free to contribute an idea or an uncompensated story of your own.

Let me know of something interesting around here.