More on Gabe and the cops

I just noticed Ken’s description of our 1975 encounter with a cop on the way back from the West Coast (I think we were somewhere around Dryden) in his comment to the pic of Gabe’s grave. I tried to post this as a comment to the picture, but the system won’t allow comments with HTML tags and, as an unrepentant typographer, I hate it when I can’t use real quotation marks and paragraph breaks. So here’s another angle on that event.

Since I was the driver of the car at the time, the cop seemed to be giving me the most hassle. He found the bag of oregano in the back window and immediately asked me what I thought it was (he must have mistaken me for a botanist). I declined to be precise and replied “Garbage,” with an innocent shrug of my shoulders. It wasn’t, apparently, the answer he preferred, and he thought I’d have a better one for him if he could find a bigger sample.

Assuming there must be a whole lot more in the trunk, he demanded, impolitely, that I open it. The trunk was crammed with our stuff as well as countless precious copies of various commie rags (that’s newspapers, not our clothes) that we were retrieving for posterity. Fortunately, he wasn’t a quick reader, so didn’t arrest us for that. However, the thought of sifting through all that stuff for a bigger payload of oregano put him off a bit. Obviously trying to make things easier for us, he asked me, “Have you got any more in here?”

“What, more garbage?” I asked.

That didn’t go over too well, but fortunately, just as he was losing his temper, Gabe raced by, as Ken has pointed out. The cop, torn by conflicting obsessions (fast cars vs. drugs), dumped out our last (visible) supply of oregano and took off in pursuit.

Oh, and while that had been going on, Gary was getting grilled about the fact that the car’s back window also contained a credit card with a name on it that didn’t match any of ours. Remember that, Gary? And the name on the card?

More on the Dumont Archives

I’ll briefly give some background to what’s happened to various artifacts of Dumont Press Graphix.

While actual commercial operations finished in April 1987, Brian Cere, Paul Hartford, and I continued renting the space until sometime around 1995, mostly for photography projects, although I continued to do a little bit of typesetting for various non-profit groups. At that point, we moved all the leftover Dumont stuff (camera and darkroom equipment, two presses, at least one VIP, shelves, desks, and all the archives and records) to the Waterloo Community Arts Centre (the Button Factory) on Regina St. in Waterloo.

Alan Rimmer and I then started to plan to set the printing and camera equipment up as a kind of graphic arts workshop within the Centre, but the basement space allotted to us ended up unuseable after the Fire Department declared it too dangerous (insufficient exit opportunities) for people to work in.

Everything stayed there for years, mostly dormant, but every so often Alan, Roddy, or myself would go down to either to clean and sort things out a bit and to retrieve something we thought important. Both Roddy and I fished out most of the historical records, such as payroll books, legal papers, and logbooks, and took them home. Rych mills also took an interest in the material and tried to encourage archivists from the University of Waterloo Library to accept the records and many of the publications into one of their collections.

Then one day about four years ago, Alan, rych, Roddy, and I went down there to do a major move of the material to space offered by the Waterloo Historical Society — only to discover that almost all the archives, cabinets, and shelving had disappeared. Something of scene then ensued when I confronted the guy in charge, who admitted they had recycled most of the magazines and newspapers on one of their weekend volunteer cleanups.

Two years ago, after Roddy died, we retrieved the records he had been interested in (mostly logbooks from the time he spent at Dumont). Last year Alan, rych, and I moved all the remaining printed materials to the WHS storage space, except for a couple of boxes of business records, including the logbooks, that I’m keeping at home.

I hadn’t looked at the logbooks in years, even though I never forgot the original entries that I quoted in my earlier blog. The first book, dated January to April 1972, not only reminded me of who was working that first year, but also fairly clearly describes the difficulties experienced by largely unskilled typographers who refused to let responsibilities migrate away from the collective to individuals. This meant, fundamentally, that when things didn’t get done or were done poorly, it became a public issue. The logbook no doubt reflects the details and tone of the “criticism/self-criticism” struggles within production meetings.

So, for example:

[Monday morning shift, 24 January, unsigned] Let’s talk about who works at 6AM -> this is a shitty shift & why is it always the same people. Discussion -> responsibility of shift to finish their work. Layout shift should do layout not proofread, corrections etc.
LOTS OF HASSLES!!

[12:30 p.m. Monday shift, 24 January, unsigned] (1) Some proofing was not done — there was a hassle about proofing & the proofing was very disorganized and we had a lot of corrections to do after paste-up.

[2:30 a.m.(?) Tuesday, 25 January, DM] [various details about Chevron copy] If Dumont ever works as a co-operative David [Monoogian?] is going to will his first million to it that he saved out of his salary.

[6:40 Feb. 16, EH] Everyones left. I just got off the phone ready to leave but first I had to turn of one computer, two perferators, one headliner, one camera timer, close up one camera back, turn of darkroom lights, etc. Really now — isn’t this a bit ridiculous!

Cleanliness was another big issue:

[Feb. 18, unsigned] Thurs. shifts didn’t clean up their dishes after their shifts and its really a drag to come face to face with 3" of sludge!

Does anyone remember what this was about?

[Mar.7/72 6:00 p.m., Rod] As of now I am on strike!

It wasn’t a joke, apparently, as this note followed immediately:

[TC] I suggest you write down the reasons why and talk to people as a group soon probably before the next meeting.

But the vast majority of entries express relief at getting work done (often at 6:00 a.m., which was the deadline for getting negatives to the printers), and more-or-less cheerfully passing on details of the work waiting for the next shift.

Road Hockey Warriors!

Okay, here we go with the Dumont Reunion Photo Contest for the month of May! Hopefully, this one will be a bit easier, but who knows for sure... Here are the key questions:

1.  Who are the five people in the photograph?
2.  When and where did this friendly little competition take place?
3.  Who else was playing that afternoon (pick two out of a possible four other players in attendance)?
4.  What was the final score?

Entries should be posted by May 25, but the Comments page is open now for rampant speculation. The entry with the best possible answers will receive a lovely print from the 1991 Dumont Reunion. No restrictions on this one, everyone can enter... even Philip and Bruce! By the way, you can click on the photo (or any photo on the blog) to see a larger version.

Research in the Archives

The following table reproduces the first three entries of the first log book used at Dumont Press Graphix in January 1972.

Date	Time	Int
Jan 18	6:45 pm	EH	Set up the logbook. Everybody better use it!
	6:59 pm	SI	I REFUSE to use it!!
approx	9:00	MC	How about a clock so we can put down the right time.

Such data raises the question of whether this “dialogue” demonstrates typical behaviour or psychological needs on the part of the individuals involved, which may have plagued them further into their adult lives. Would anyone else care to offer a diagnosis? (E.g., that the third person implied that the first two lied about the precise time of their entry?)
If this strikes your interest, please let me know if you would like to see a transcription of pages two and three of this log book, wherein a Saturday night shift collectively express concern about the difficulties of co-ordinating production (without the hindrance of bosses), and wax philosophical about the relationship between efficiency and communication. Also included in their epistle: details of the now long-forgotten technology under which these poor workers suffered.