[ad_1]
Did the Friend Reader notice a local self-involvement among newspaper columnists? the trend?
I have. I especially noticed that when he was writing the opening sentence for his Old News column just ten minutes before the deadline.
I’m typing so furiously now that my fragile keyboard rattles on the pressboard shelf that serves as my home office.
Do these sentences make sense? Can someone from the copy desk help me with my typos?
The holidays are over, but not for the newspaper reporter who returned to work on New Year’s Day on January 2nd with only the Tuesdays to Fridays available for work. It’s his week in the week for a columnist who usually spends days researching and revising valuable prose. Normally she would have to vacuum pack in 4 days all the tasks she would cram in 5 days.
As you can see, I put those preferences aside today. So I’m happy to confess that I’ve already beaten 846 of my allotted minimum of 1225 words.
I’m also happy to admit that the Little Rock newspaper’s 100-year-old archives have been re-opened to our advantage. On the January 7, 1923 Arkansas Democrat page, I just found him two articles. Each one is accompanied by an illustration. Both help flesh out the inches in these columns while still engaging the reader.
In the first, the Democrat sounds his own horn by interviewing one of his paper careers about his gallant military service in World War II. Gassed and wounded inside, he repulsed 100 German soldiers with an automatic rifle and terrorized them. The former infantryman received a commendation from the U.S. Army for his gallant conduct during an artillery bombardment.
After five years, a month and four days of service — 26 months of which were “over there” — Pvt. Plummer was honorably discharged at Camp Pike, North Little Rock. Deciding he didn’t want to go back to his farm in Missouri where he grew up, he signed up for his apprenticeship.
During the day he carried the Democrats around town. His nights were spent with his wife and children in his room at 622 W. Markham St.
The reporter suggested to Plummer that he’d seen enough fighting to have another man take the bunk next time.
“It’s not your life, buddy,” was the reply. “Anytime Uncle Sam is threatened in any way, you’ll see that you’re really on the front lines. I’m going to sign up for the Reserve Corps for three years.
“Okay, see you later. Now that the press is here and we got about 10 new subscribers today, I think we’d better start calmly. Bon soir.”
■ ■ ■
Friend Reader, enjoy another story from the Democrats on January 7th. Provides an insight into the early days of telephone service in Little Rock.
To supplement my self-referential space-filling chatter above, I’ll quote this from the original. (see part of that series here: arkansasonline.com/0109joe/).
Until I say something different, the following is the Democratic Party’s word for word, with some parenthesized edits for clarity.
The “birthplace” of the telephone system in Little Rock. 1” was installed.
If you’re one of those merry fellows of the ‘guys in town’ who used to ease their inner selves at Nick Coupfale’s ‘Eat Shop’ at 104 West Markham Street some 40 years ago. If so—there are only a few of them left—you may remember the first telephone installed in Little Rock.
The first phone bell to ring at this location was the fondly remembered old clinic in what is now the Faust Café.
The device was considered a freak of novelty, according to veterans who recalled the time, and it was an experience worth telling to keep the conversation going on the wire before that novelty was overshadowed by familiarity.
The first installation of the Little Rock telephone exchange had about 40 telephones, all of which were installed around the same time as the Coupfale telephones, but Nick’s telephone was number one, the first installed in March. First connected to the switch. , 1879.
The number was passed on to Kupfale’s successors and was retained by Mike P. Forster, who purchased the Great Hall in 1891. Forster retained the number of his home phone until the number was wiped out by a mechanical switching system a few months earlier. [review the uproar that caused here: arkansasonline.com/0109hello/].
It was not without objection that the old number was canceled and replaced by a four-digit number, as Mr. Forster, who retired from active duty in 1912, treasured it for sentimental reasons. But the caller said it had to go.
He worked for Kupferle in 1887 and “inherited” the number when he purchased the Great Hall from the JA Wade estate. He forwarded his number to his home at 115 West 12th Street on December 31, 1912.
Commenting on early phone service atrocities in Little Rock, Forster said he didn’t have a phone number.
The cardboard directory was then numbered opposite the name, with the first name under each letter numbered “1”, followed by each letter in succession. Hence the “A” group. Ask “1A” when calling the first name of the .
To call the central, the caller turned the crank, and when the central found time to answer, the operator would ring the caller’s phone and ask which number they wanted. For old telephone operators, speed and quickness occupied an unimportant place.
Formed in 1879, the Little Rock Telephone Exchange was a subsidiary of the Western Union Telegraph Company. The original system was installed by American Bell Telephone Company of Boston for Western Union for $3,585.13.
In 44 years, the use of the telephone has evolved from an insignificant novelty to a business and social necessity, establishing the telephone’s current status as an institution. [inseparably] The connection with the commercial and social life of the city lends historical interest to the current location of the Faust Café, where the system “cracked the shell”, so to speak.
■ ■ ■
Only 1188 words are shown, but we still need at least 1225 words.
And hopefully those are also the best possible words.
oh well.
As my old editor used to say, “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of perfection.”
And now I’m done.
Email:
[email protected]
[ad_2]
Source link
