Post# 1475-9/20/2006-01:27 ||| charles~richard (Los Angeles, CA)
Some of you know that I also have an interest in vintage office equipment. Not quite the obsession as with vacuum cleaners, but I like old manual typewriters, duplicators, mimeographs, hand-cranked pencil sharpeners, etc.
This fascination also started in childhood. My mother, ever the dutiful minister's wife, had a fair number of churchly duties fall on her shoulders. Being a typist and accomplished Mimeograph operator, she was presented with the dubious honor of preparing the church bulletins every week.
The ONE time I ever, as a child, heard her utter a profanity was due to the old hand-cranked Mimeograph machine, which was perched in its noxious lair just up a rickety stairway from the back of the sanctuary in a dark, scary alcove. The tar-like scent of that sticky, black ink hung in the air like tangy incense – and more than once, Mama graced the keyboards of the Mighty Hammond with blackened fingertips ... battle-scars from her latest go-round with that cranky old duplicator.
I used to sneak up into that dark room to look at the Mimeograph (A 1937 A. B. Dick Model 90, Jeff!). One Wednesday evening when I was over there being "supervised" by Mama while she led choir rehearsal, I snuck off and went up to the Mimeograph room. I got up the courage to lift the dust cover and turn the crank around several times. Wheee! What fun!
When I did not realize, not knowing anything about the machine, was that the top part of the rotating drum was open, and that if you weren't careful to leave that opening in the upright position, ink would seep out and get all over the innards of the machine.
Well, when we got home from church, Mama immediately noticed the black ink on my t-shirt and fingertips. "What have you been up to?" she sternly asked. Knowing I was busted, I stammered, "I was looking at the Stencil Machine." She said, "Well I hope you weren't messing with it. If you did, you're gonna get it!"
I was too afraid to cop to the full extent of my mischief so I said nothing.
That Saturday afternoon, Mama headed over to the church (the parsonage was just next door) to do her organ practicing and to type and run off the bulletins. I didn't think anything of it.
A little while later, I heard her clomping up the front porch steps. She opened the front door and called upstairs, "CHARLES - RICHARD - LESTER! You come down here -- RIGHT NOW!!"
Uhhhh-ohhhhhhhh.
Heart pounding, I wondered what trouble I was in NOW. (I was like Dennis the Menace when I was a little boy --- always getting into SOMETHING!)
I cautiously sidled down the stairs. There Mama stood in the front hallway, arms folded and looking VERY unhappy!
"I thought I told you you'd better not be messing with that Mimeograph!"
I protested, "I wasn't!"
"Don't you fib to me young man! Come over here with me!"
She took me by the arm and with a very determined air, led me over to the church, into the side door, up the stairs, and into the Mimeograph room. She pointed to the inside of the machine and said, "LOOK AT THAT."
Shaking in my boots, I peered in and ...
OH ... MY ... GOD.......
A chill ran through my bones as I saw that the rollers and gears were dripping with black ink and a large pool of it had collected down in the bottom of the housing.
She said, "You will go right now to the house and get a bucket of hot soapy water and a scrub brush and some rags, and you will clean EVERY SPECK of that ink out."
She turned on her heels and went downstairs to do her practicing.
Well, fascinated as I was with the Mimeograph, spending all afternoon cleaning it up was not exactly my idea of a fun Saturday afternoon! On the other hand, I was relieved that she had not instructed me to go get a switch from the tree in the front yard...!
So I set-to the exhausting, tedious task. Several hours later, the Mimeograph was glistening-clean and as good as new. I, on the other hand, was covered with ink from head to toe!
I went downstairs and into the sanctuary where Mama was booming away on the Hammond Organ. When she looked up and saw me she stopped short and said, "My Lord, Charles, look at you! You were supposed to get the ink on the wash rags, not all over you!"
I said, "I'm finished cleaning it up."
She got up from the organ and followed me upstairs to inspect my work.
She looked into and under the Mimeograph. With a stern but satisfied half-smile, "Well, you did a very good job. NOW, I am going to show you how to operate this machine properly, and from now on it will be your job to run off the bulletins each week."
Suffice it to be said that that turned out to be a very happy afternoon for me, and I laid into my job with great relish. And whenever we went to a new church, I would always grandly announce that I was an Expert Mimeograph Operator and would be happy to do the job for them. I was not turned down a single time! I even continued doing this up into my teenage and young adult years as I took on my own church organist positions.
The last church I played at that still had a Mimeograph was here in Los Angeles back in the early 1980s -- they had a big fancy electric A.B. Dick Mimeograph with an electrostatic stencil burner that was much easier to use than having to type directly onto the dark blue stencils. You would prepare your master on regular bond paper, then insert the master into the stencil burner where the stencil would automatically be prepared.
Little by little, the messy old Mimeographs would be replaced by "newfangled" photocopiers and Xerox machines. While these machines are far easier to use and much more versatile, I surely do miss going into church offices and seeing the ubiquitous Mimeograph sitting on the counter in the office.
I also like the spirit duplicators, a different process than the Mimeograph. How many of you are old enough to remember the pungent-smelling, purple-ink handouts we used to get in school? Just after I became an Expert Mimeograph Operator (which was when I was in the fourth grade), I figured I could also master the spirit duplicator at school so I set myself to doing so. Soon, I was kept busy before and after school running off handouts for my teachers. This of course promptly gained me the label of "Teacher's Pet!"
Anyway, another happy memory. And here are a few photos of the Mimeographs in my collection. Along with them I have a half-dozen or so manual typewriters, including one with a 17-inch carriage for preparing mimeograph stencils. I also have a fabulous late 1920s Royal office typewriter in immaculate condition.
Oh and by the way, the church with the Mimeograph upstairs had a Model R Electrolux with cord winder and power nozzle that was stored in the closet under the creaky wooden stairs that led up to the Sunday School rooms where the Mimeograph room was! I also eventually worked my way into the good graces of Mrs. Godsey, the elderly cleaning lady who came to the church once a week to clean and dust, to polish the wooden pews with lemon oil, and to vacuum the maroon aisle carpeting with the Electrolux.
She was more than happy to let me do the vacuuming for her. But I got her in hot water once when I accidentally left the dusting brush on one of the chairs up on the pulpit! It went unnoticed until Sunday morning when my dad, The Rev. Harold Lester, found it. After church he took it to Mrs. Godsey and told her she had left it in the church. She of course was innocent but was sweet enough not to tell on me! But she did rather sternly scold me in private and told me if I did that again, I couldn't operate the sweeper anymore. So of course I was VERY careful from then on!
"And So It Goes."
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The first photo here is of a late-1950s electric A. B. Dick Mimeograph that I currently have up in my office at my church. I do actually use it, mostly for fun of course, running off choir handouts and schedules. I also have an A. B. Dick spirit duplicator up there, and my all-time favorite typewriter: A bright blue 1970s IBM Selectric-II!
