Gather ‘round kids. It’s time for a story about the good ol’ days…before all these new fangled contraptions like the In-ter-net and portable radios.
When I was your age, I worked at the Daily Raccoon. This was way back when it was printed on paper…pressed onto paper actually, using what we called ink and ‘movable type’. Steve Gutenberg* invented this printing method in fourteen ninety-two. But his is another story for another day.
Movable type looked like this:
People called ‘Type-setters’ had the exciting job of packing by hand into wooden racks each letter of each word of each sentence of each paragraph of each column of each page, of every newspaper, one by one by one, on and on and on – truly a labor of love. Had to have been. Please tell me it was.
Because this was so much work, whenever they could, they tried to save pre-packed phrases and even headlines that they could reuse. Just like social programs and mistakes, ‘news’ has an uncanny way of repeating itself.
In the newspaper bidnis we called these pre-made headlines, “Standing Heads”.
Here are a few examples:
Mayor Caught in Kickback Scheme
Shooter a “Good boy, kept to himself.”
Dry Cleaner Accountant Accused of Laundering
Lefty Checks Reason At Door
I still enjoy pre-packaging standing heads whenever I see history about to repeat itself. Actually I can’t help it.
I’ll post them here as they cross my news desk.
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* Just testing you. Steve Guttenberg was a guy in the 1980's who made a living (for awhile) pretending to be an actor. I could always tell he was acting. He did this well. The other Gutenberg I care for very much.
