College Jobs I

I had several different jobs while I was in college. They ranged from scooping hog manure to being the night manager of a grocery store. I have already written about working on a farm and the swimming pool. I did some odd jobs in those days like painting or carpentry work but they were very short term.

I worked as a typesetter and printer for Glanzman Printing Company part-time for several years. It didn’t pay well but I needed whatever money I could get so I couldn’t turn it down. It usually amounted to 3-4 hours a day. Jerry Glanzman, the owner, was the only other person working there. I learned a lot about the printing business during that time.

We printed everything from business cards to funeral programs to massive runs for Metromail, the direct mail advertising company in Mt Pleasant. Some printing runs involved only 25 or 50 pieces. Metromail had runs of up to 3 million pieces.

I learned a lot while I worked for Jerry. It was an interesting job and you really had a feeling of accomplishment when you created something that looked very professional. Typesetting is now a lost art. You would have to go to a historical village to see how it’s done. The type drawers are now sometimes hung on the wall and filled with nick knacks.

Jerry had a linotype machine that you could set type with, too. It was complicated and I never learned to use it. As part of the process it actually poured molten lead into a mold to make the reverse image of each letter. Flat strips of hot metal would come out of the machine in perfect order.

Jerry was close friend of Maurice LeMaster a local policeman. He came twice everyday for coffee…once in the morning and once in the afternoon. We would walk over to the Cozy Café, find an empty booth, and have coffee. I was fascinated with the local philosophers who would hang out in there and talk about how to solve the problems of the world. I think I learned as much in the coffee shop as I did in some of my classes at college. I also wasted a lot of time there and drank too much coffee. I got so I knew almost everyone who came in.

One day when I was doing a long run for Metromail on the offset press I caught my thumb in the machine. I had been applying water to the plate and pressed a little too hard. My right thumb was in before I realized what happened. It was nearly severed about a half inch from the tip. Pushing it back together I went, dripping blood all the way, to Lauser’s where Becky worked and had her take me to Dr. Rankin.

Dr. Rankin shot it full of painkiller, cleaned it out, sewed it back together and sent me home. It was so bandaged up that I had to write with my left hand for about two weeks. To this day the thumb looks different, flatter and wider, than the other one.

I worked at Glanzman Printing on and off for about four years. I’ll tell you about another one of my jobs in the next piece.