The Shop

Ken’s Story
Janice worked for about six months as a fill-in linotype operator at the newspaper. Her stint as an operator provided some good humor (not at the time, of course, but funny now).

One incident happened like this. One of the newspaper’s country correspondents wrote out her copy in long hand. It was a tedious portrayal of who-visited-who that week, page after page after page. When Janice finished setting the type, she added a remark at the bottom. “Thank God, the end, Amen.” She expected the proof reader would enjoy the comment and then mark the line for deletion. Either through lax editing, or pure orneriness, the comment did not get deleted. The paper’s entire readership was treated to the barb. The publisher did not appreciate the humor. He was of the old school and thought a woman’s place was in the home - not on a linotype.

Sam’s Version
The Auburn Newspapers gave me my very first paying job. The paper published “Funeral Notices” for the two local mortuaries. These were small black-bordered cards with the name of the deceased, the time and place of the funeral, and a very brief obituary. For 50¢ I delivered Funeral Notices to all the local businesses. The store owner would place them on the counter for customers to read. Since the newspaper was published only on Tuesday and Friday, the Funeral Notice was a far more trustworthy method of drawing mourners than the newspaper’s sometimes tardy obituary.

My sister soon joined me in this little delivery business. We would take turns running to the “shop”, as everyone called the newspaper office, after school to see if anyone had died. It was a good day for undertakers and delivery boys when two stacks of black-bordered cards were setting on the glass counter - a whole dollar for the same amount of walking as fifty cents. That bought a lot of Circus Peanuts.

When I say we delivered funeral notices to all the businesses in town, I meant only the respectable retail stores and cafes. Not the bowling alley, pool hall, or taverns. The newspaper also printed sale bills for the local auction house, primarily advertisements for upcoming estate sales. For a very profitable $1.50 we delivered these also, and got to go into the pool hall, to boot. I guess the theory was that the folks in the tavern probably wouldn’t go to the funeral, but they just might show up at the estate sale to bid on a box of used hand tools.

We delivered funeral notices and sale bills not only in the four-block area of downtown Auburn, but we had to walk all the way up Courthouse Avenue and deliver to the businesses in South Auburn around the courthouse square. It was quite a job for a fourth or fifth grader and we were quite proud of the responsibility. Being a patronage position, we held on to the job well into high school, long after teenage tastes outstripped the revenue stream.