The Old Farts Thread

In Boston you can't walk two blocks without passing a Dunkin' Donuts shop. They're like CVS stores in D.C.

And ABC stores in Hawaii.

Only on Oahu, Tak. There is not even one ABC store in Hilo. You want ABC on the Big Island, you have to drive 100 miles to Kona-side where there are two or three (really, that's all) in Kailua/Kona. Only place on the entire island.

You reckon that's because of the exorbitant number of Irish cops there?

True; I was going by what I observed in Waikiki last January. ABC stores are everywhere - sometimes two on the same block! I think they outdo Starbucks. LOL

I thought you'd be looking for a Berliner -

That may well have something to do with it. But I suspect it's more because the DD world HQ is located in a Boston suburb (forget which town now).

You're right, c.i. Honolulu is overrun by ABC stores. I think there's at least one in every hotel lobby.

The headquarters of DD is in Canton, MA not far outside of Boston, but it began in Quincy ma - home of the presidents.

Thank you, Linkat. As a long-time former Bostonian who used to report on the hotel and restaurant industry, I should have remembered that.

Hard to picture you as an informant, LA.

Well, that's what us journalists are supposed to do. More or less.

Oh, well, that's good. You were a columnist then.

I was in the newspaper business for a short time; I couldn't hack it. I wasn't a writer or nothing like that. Guess you could say I was in circulation, sort of, but out of it just as quickly. Allegedly I sold Grit, though in my estimation unloading three copies, including one to my dad, didn't live up to the job title.

I was a young fart then, of course.

I was writing for our high school (what to call it, set of few pages, ah, I remember, La Reina), and went to interview the nun who ran the home ec department, can't remember why, perhaps that was suggested. I was mildly interested in that, slightly knowing baking and sewing, and it all got turned around to me, what did I want to be in life.

A doctor.
Well, you can't do that and be married, but you could be a missionary.
That was probably early '59.

As some of you know, I signed up as a postulant, and, during the summer, sent on a trip by my freaked out parents, fell in lov-ish with the film editor (good one, I should post about him) but he was careful, sly dog, and left me interested but not really flirted with. Just talked to by an actual man.
He won.

So much for my journalism career and the nunnery.

I too was in the newspaper business for a short time. I melted lead for the Kansas City Star. Not a cool job.

Here's the guy I was enamored of when I was seventeen, Tony de Zarraga, . Good man, I know it.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0212499/

Was he gay - that occurred to me later. Smiles.

Yeah, I, too, delivered newspapers to subscribers as a very young lad. Mayhap that's wot got me a bit interested in the higher-paying positions in the newsroom.

Actually, that wasn't it. What it was, was what the hell do you do, fresh out of uni, with a degree in English? Some editor assumed that as an English lit major I must be one hell of a good writer. (Yeah, I had a lot of 'em fooled back then.) He gave me a job. The rest, as they say, almost made me a part of history.

So, you're all ignoring Tony, whom I admit I added here as a savior, after the high school paper interview followed by nun-debacle - but he was.

Imdb doesn't have a photo - but, hey, I do, that I took.

Will add to that site manana.


Kidding re you all avoiding.

I know the lead of which you write, Edgar. My buddy's family ran our small town's weekly newspaper. I clearly recall the big slabs of lead the typesetters used.

The paper came out on Friday afternoon. They probably printed 1200 copies at most, eight or ten pages. After school and during the summer months, my buddy's job was to clear paper trimmings from beneath the press. I was his unpaid assistant although he'd generally treat me to a coke from their machine; took 10% of his 50¢ wage.

The job consisted of our using wooden sticks, very much like the blackboard pointers teachers used in those days, and standing on either side of the press, which was a good 12-foot wide and nearly as tall, we'd reach in under the monster and rake the trimmings from the papers as the sheets were cut to size, printed, collated and folded. We were within a foot of the humongous roller which seemed to be spinning at 1000 rpm or so. We were only 8 or 9 years old.

I'm sure presses like that are things of the past, but if they were still in use today, what are the chances a nine-year-old could land such a job? I get the jitters just thinking back on it.

I am amazed they let you do it even then.