Category: Newspapering

“Oh, Copyboy?”

When I first went to work for a newspaper, more than 50 years ago, newsrooms had copyboys.

They had a lot of mundane tasks but not on deadline.  On deadline they ran copy from reporters’ desks to the City Desk, where it was edited and then rushed downstairs to composing.

Reporters treated copy boys indifferently at best and rudely sometimes.  We yelled at them, especially when we were on deadline.

“Copy! Copyboy!” we would shout when we had finished another take — a “take” is a page in newspaper lingo.

I guess part of the reason we yelled at them on deadline is because it made us feel important even if our story wasn’t.  He would rush over, grab our copy, and hustle it to the City Desk.

This is not him, but this is sort of what he looked like.
This is not him, but this is what he looked like.

And then, one fine day, The Charlotte News, where I worked in the 1960s, hired a copyboy who was weightlifter.  Remember, this was back in the day when there weren’t all that many weightlifters, when most football players didn’t even lift weights.

Anyway, this copyboy looked like copyman.  He had muscles in his eyeballs.  And, overnight, the culture in the newsroom changed.

“Copyboy?” reporters would say to him, in a normal voice. “Copyboy, if you have a moment, would you mind….”

Coming Friday: I Shoulda Made Notes

No Dogs Or Reporters Allowed

I was sitting in Honey’s Restaurant on Tryon Street in Charlotte having lunch with my city editor, John W. Jamison, and another reporter from The Charlotte News, minding my own business.

Our food had arrived — I got a hamburger and fries — and I was trying unsuccessfully to open one of those little plastic packs of mustard.   It was frustrating. That pack was designed to be torn open. By a child. But I couldn’t, not that day.

A child could open it.
A child could open it.

So, as unobtrusively as you can do that sort of thing, I put a corner of the mustard pack in my mouth, bit down, and tried again to rip it open. But it was no dice.

Now I was determined.

I couldn’t tear it open with my fingers or my teeth so I decided to squeeze it open.  Very gently, of course. I knew when it came out, it would come out fast, under pressure. So as the mustard pushed through the package seal I carefully, very, very carefully, aimed it at my hamburger patty.

But I was not careful enough.

When the mustard broke through the seal, it arced up like a missile. It flew over my city editor’s head –well, not all of it, a little bit fell on him — and it kept going, up and up, until it barely touched the ceiling of the restaurant, where it left a short yellow streak.  Then it arced down, splatting like a big, yellow gob of bird poo-poo on the white shirt of a man two tables away.

I was mortified. I didn’t say a word. He didn’t say a word either, at first. He just picked up his knife and began scraping mustard off his shirt.

The guy knew my city editor and he must have guessed what I was because he said to Jamison, “They shouldn’t let dogs or reporters in this restaurant.”

Coming Monday: “What Poor Smelled Like”