1950s wedding dresses

Work, work, work.......

THROWBACK THURSDAY:

Remember your first job? I remember mine. I was a 17-year-old copy girl on The San Diego Union in June of 1952. They must have seen me com ... ing. My "orientation" was handled by the head copy girl at that time, a stunning red head named Dolores who sashayed around in a purple knit dress and spent every possible moment planning her upcoming wedding. She showed me how to fill a glue pot with the Cats Paw rubber cement, where the copy pencils were kept and where to sharpen them. (Offices were really high tech then. LOL)

She took me in to the wire room and demonstrated how we ripped the copy and dupes off the wire (teletype) machines (Associated Press, United Press, International News Service and the sports wire). They were to be separated, the carbons furled into balls and put in huge cardboard trash barrels and the dupes spiked on the wall. The top copy was placed on a big linoleum-covered table in the middle of the room and a ruler used to "rip" each story into a separate piece. The stack of originals was placed in the in-basket on the City Desk. This was done every 15 minutes.

I was also instructed to do the bidding of anybody on staff who had more seniority than I did. That meant everybody. The new copy kid was the lowest of the low in a 1950s newsroom.

"Boy!" I dutifully went over to a guy on the rim. "We need the paper stretcher," he barked. "Where is it," I asked. I was instructed to go to engraving, which at that time, was on the 5th floor in the adjoining building. Away I went. Somebody had called ahead. "Gee, we don't have the paper stretcher," I was told. "We sent it to the loading dock."

By this time I was like the kid who doesn't believe in Santa Claus anymore but doesn't want to blow Christmas by letting on to the folks. I went to the loading dock, then to the composing room. I went to the Tribune side, photo, accounting, sports, the dungeon (where they stored the gigantic rolls of newsprint), the presses. I got to learn where everything was, who everybody was, and what they did. I was gone for hours! Most fun I ever had on the job, just going around and meeting everyone. They finally ran out of places to send me, and I had to report back to the guys in Union editorial that the paper stretcher was apparently lost, never to be found again. We all had a good laugh. I really felt a part of the team. 1950s wedding dresses