A BELATED TRIBUTE TO A LEGENDARY TYPESETTER, IDA MITTELSTADT, WHO COVERED FOR ME A THOUSAND TIMES AND ASKED NOTHING IN RETURN
OLD TYPEWRITERS SET IN THEIR WAYS JUST LIKE ME! I AM, IN ESSENCE, ONE AND THE SAME! ANTIQUATED BUT FEELING OKAY WITH THAT!
I feel obliged, and to be honest, a titch guilty, about a glaring shortfall, in not previously showing appreciation, for the work of several former work colleagues, who very much contributed to my longevity in a highly competitive profession. Such that I have decided to open with a sincere apology.
I haven't written a single word, you see, about the recent death of Ida Mittelstadt. She died a few weeks ago, at her home in Alberta, a short time after the death of her husband Mel, both formerly of Bracebridge.
Ida was one of the most important ladies in my life, back when I began working as Editor of The Bracebridge Herald-Gazette. Actually, there were two employees who used to save my job just about every week, correcting editorial copy I turned-in for the weekly edition. One of course was Ida, our lead typesetter, and the other was Norman Tanner, who should have been an English teacher (or professor), versus a newspaper clerk and proofreader. Norman handled everything he did in a scholarly manner, and he was polite to even the most aggressive, and nasty customer who appeared at the front desk. But here's what Ida did for my career, and by the way, I was reminded of this today, when I bought a nice 1950's vintgge portable Smith Corona typewriter, at the local Restore. How so, you ask?
When I began working at the former Herald-Gazette office, at 27 Dominion Street, in Bracebridge, in the latter part of 1980, after a boot-camp introduction to writing, for a weekly newspaper, courtesy our sister publication, The Beacon, in MacTier, I settled into a newsroom desk, stained with ink from the old days, with a monster Underwood manual typewriter sitting on top. It was a beautiful old machine with nice gold decorations on the front, and an opening just above the keyboard, that allowed one to look easily into the mechanism and connected levers of the keys. It made such an amazing, strong and literary sound, hitting the paper tight against the roller. Every strike of a key was profound, and exciting for the writer, hitting those letters, even if all that had been imprinted to that point, was the title of the article and my byline. I'd sit back in my chair, and admire the progress, while trying to figure out how I was going to take the scribbled information from my reporter's notepad, and make a front page story that might even run above the fold in the very next issue.
Which brings me to this point. Unlike the nifty little laptop I'm working on, at this moment, the manual typewriter couldn't erase the errors in hard copy. And for most reporters, working on a press deadline, we didn't use white-out, or the correcting papers, because it took too long to execute, especially if we had a hangover, or not enough coffee, and made several typos on each line of print. The preference of the editor, like I did with submitted hard copy from our community correspondents, was to use edit lines to revise the editorial, to read sensibly with good english, as Norm Tanner would say. Ida once told me, that my editing lines, when held well back from her face, looked like an abstract painting. Truth is, even up close, my edit lines looked abstract; and that would be complicated even more, when the proofreader, Norm Tanner, also added his corrections to the hard copy, massacred by me.
Ida would give hard copy to Norman occasionally, if she was having problems deciphering the edit marks I had imprinted with a pen, and it was likely he would add a few more edit marks, before returning it to Ida with a clarification attached. She would then attempt to type set my copy, and everything else in the way of editorial submissions, I had dropped in her "to-do" tray. It was likely she would have to hike up the stairs to our newsroom, numerous times throughout an average Monday or Tuesday (press day) to beg a few moments of my time, so that I could clarify some of the stranger edit marks, that to her, made the copy read badly. Ida was right on most of these occasions. She was also a good editor, but that wasn't her job. She just tried to fix what she could, because she didn't want problems on Wednesday morning, when the paper hit the newstands, and we would discover typos that made it to print. Ida and Norman were proud of the paper, and their contribution to its business success, and they didn't want me or my associates mucking it up. Norman and Ida often spent more time in the newsroom looking for clarification, than the reporters spent there, hammering out their news copy.
In my ten years working for Muskoka Publications, and being responsible for many papers, and magazines, some that were published seasonally, I never had a single occasion, where Ida reprimanded me for my crappy edit lines, or the quality of my editing work generally. I want to tell you this! Her job was one of the most difficult in the entire newspaper game back then, because everyone was her master in one way or another. She also had to typeset advertising copy, and as well, she had the additional job of keeping subscription labels up to date, assisting manager Raymee Lee with the weekly mailing of The Herald-Gazette; which necessitated an early morning every Wednesday, after a late, late press night, that might have stretched from eight a.m. to ten or eleven at night, if we had technical problems and printing delays. She never yelled at me, and although she might have grumbled a tad after I left the room, and called me a jerk when I was out of the room, she had a positive work ethic, such that she'd insist on figuring her way through some unexpected difficulty. She had enormous pride in the quality of her work, and keeping the presses rolling, you might say.
I've enjoyed four decades as a writer, and I like to think I've accomplished a few things editorially that were mildly successful in terms of audience pleasing. I've given credit to many individuals who gave me a hand-up, and good advice, that helped me stick with journalism, and writing generally. But I'll tell you one thing for certain. I would never have achieved a third of what I like to call my body of work, had it not been for the kindness and cooperation of Ida Middlestadt, nee Taylor, and Norman Tanner, who made me look good, when, if they had wanted to, could have let my errors in editing go uncorrected. I was at their mercy, I really was, and yet, as arrogant as I was in those early years of newspaper celebrity, they decided to help me out, despite a crusty ego. An ego, by the way, that was most definitely out of place for my show of mediocrity. They could have gone to the manager or publisher and shown them my errors, which turned up regularly for those first two years in the editor's desk. For some unknown reason, they spared me, and by so doing, gave me a chance to improve gradually; when truth be known, I was getting paid more than they were, and had a much better work schedule each week.
Ida and Mel were good together, and although they didn't have a big house, or much in the way of accumulated wealth, they had each other, and always seemed happy in their married life. It wasn't that life didn't through them some curves, and bouts of ill health in later years. Ida came in to work cheerful and left the same way, at least, this was our opinion, having said good morning and good night on thousands of occasions, working in that Dominion Street building once owned by the Boyer family, legendary in the local publishing industry. There were times, when I dropped off edited copy in her "to do" box, that I knew full well, was unacceptable in terms of edit lines, and ten times more corrections than should have been necessary. If I had been better at writing back then, I should have been able to give her a clean page of copy without a single curving edit line, or alternate words scribbled in tiny print, above a work scratched out with ball point pen. I was looking at this Smith Corona portable, I purchased this morning, and that's all I could think about; all the corrections I had to make on even one page of editorial copy. No wonder it still takes me so long writing these blogs. It can take me a full hour or more to edit a daily blog, because I make lots of changes, just like I began in the writing profession. The difference of course, I don't need edit lines any longer. In essence, I'm now doing what Ida used to, and it makes me feel horrible, that I made the poor kid decipher a hundred edit marks a page, just so I could look good when the weekly issue hit the store shelves; and the stories read perfectly, with only a few predictable typos getting past Ida, Norman and me.
I always thanked Ida, and of course Norman, who tutored me on ways to tighten up my writing, and I'd like to think that overall, we had a good working relationship. Yet, I know full well, I didn't credit either as I should have, by going to bat for them, when salary increases were being discussed by management. I don't know if any typesetters or proofreaders have ever shared-in on the glory of a writer's Pulitzer Prize, but for the successes of our paper back then, by golly, the folks behind the writers, in the composition department, were the cavalry, even if it was mistakenly entertained, that the editorial component was the end-all. They could have made us look real bad, and maybe even cost us our jobs, if they had decided to rebel against low wages and a___hole reporters, including the editor, who made their lives a living hell.
When I walked out of The Herald-Gazette on that last day, in the autumn of 1989, angry and disillusioned about what that decade had represented, seeing as I was as poor for the effort as when I began reporting, my last look back, was at the place where Ida and Norman used to work in the old building, near the front desk, that afforded the first scent of printing ink for what lay beyond. While I likely didn't appreciate it at that moment, my memories of those two staffers, would be the one striking positive in my own self improvement, over a long career; thinking back to their kindnesses bestowed upon the know-it-all in the editor's chair. They did improve my writing capability over time, because they were patient with me, and never made their interventions seem punitive or in any way a reprimand. Of course I didn't think to write something like this when both were alive, and this now, thusly, can never be more than a hollow, sad retrospective, even as sincere as I wish it to read. I should have taken both their hands, and squeezed tight, shaking them heartily, while thanking them for sticking with me for all those years, at their own expense of time and effort.
I may sit down later today, and insert a nice clean, crisp piece of typewriter paper, and take this vintage Smith Corona for a little ride. It will be quite an exercise, after the convenience of this laptop, where I can make corrections till the cows come home, as they say, without any need of edit lines or volumes of white-out splashed upon the screen. I will write a little mock news story, to see if all the assistance those two kind folks gave me, really did improve my skills as a writer, who can put it in print right, on the first try. Whenever I sit down to craft a daily blog, or compose a column for a regional publication, I can't get through the editorial piece, without mindfully recalling what I still consider the good old days, when I worked with those fine folks and good friends at The Herald-Gazette. Folks who lived, without complaint, that pay cheque to pay cheque existence, who had to fasten the mufflers of their cars with wire, when the brackets rusted away; and who had to tightly budget a small amount of money, to cover basic living expenses, yet never letting their personal burdens weigh down their work effort. Showing enormous pride in their place of employment, the product, which of course was a community legacy, and their own efforts to make it all successful and at the same time profitable. Sure, they were just doing their jobs. The fact they were so dutiful in theirs, meant I got to keep mine. Of course I'm grateful. I have a few decades to mull this over. I'm still writing because they kept me on my game when it counted most!
My condolences to the Mittelstadt and Taylor families in the loss of both Ida and Mel, kindred spirits until the end.
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