RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,289
(Tiparillos and Tupemaros)
One of my first jobs was at
a legal-printing place called
New Jersey Appellate Printing.
Initially it was at the old
granary at the bottom of Main
Street, then it moved up (we
moved most of it except the
heavy equipment), to the old
Woodbridge Savings Bank
building (still there, now a
gun shop and offices and a
hardware and auto parts
store too). I liked both
places. The old granary
was cool, for what it was.
The bank building was
even cooler. First off, it
was air-conditioned by
these two giant Chrysler
conditioning units, of sheet
metal, grafted onto each
of two opposite side-walls.
We used to blast the cooling,
and that was a lot of space,
and high space, to cool. None
of it ever seemed to matter.
I'd never luxuriated in air
conditioning before, ever.
-
Working at a plebian job like
that in one of those old sorts of
once magnificent bank buildings,
with the balcony and marble and
granite put one inf the mind of
working in a cathedral - as the
cliche went - of 'Commerce.'
It never made no never-mind,
any of that 'exalted' stuff, to us.
My fellow worker, Bill Konwalow,
kept the Led Zepplin blasting.
Another guy, name forgotten but
who we called 'Weirdo-Beardo,'
was some sort of Rutgers student
who nonetheless managed to work
with us probably 4 days a week.
Never figured that out. I can
well remember getting paid on
Fridays, cash, in a little, brown
pay envelope with hours and
rates written on it. One day I
can recall me elation, at like
20 bucks a day, realizing I'd
actually made a hundred dollars
that week! I used to infuriate
my mother by just leaving all
the cash boggled up in my sock
drawer. Another guy, Dick
Martin, was a typesetter, in
the old newspaper-type fashion
of hot lead and metal typography.
I often helped him, when not
binding or collating. He had
this weird penchant of devouring
every new issue of TV Guide,
which he'd buy next-door at a
small news and magazine store.
His favorite thing - he was
crazy over Marlo Thomas -
was a show called 'That Girl.'
I never saw it, but I always
saw him going crazy-nuts
over her. And yet another
guy, Milt Goldberg, was also
a character of note. Firstly, he
was traditionally Jewish, and
the first guy like that I'd ever
worked with (these were NY
Guild printer kinds of guys,
used to serious labor strictures
and production quotas). I
learned a lot just by watching.
Milt smoked a pipe, and even
gave me one. Having that
pipe, of course, led me to Joe
Kump, a cool guy over by
Leesville Ave., in Avenel.
Joe Kump was an older guy,
maybe 60 or so, then, who
had a very small, boxy
building in which he sold
and manufactured smoker's
pipes. He was a fine old gent,
willing to talk about all the
varied sorts of cherry woods
and Meershaums and all that
which went into good pipe-wood
selection and cutting. He also
explained the finer points of
hot-spots, lighting and packing
the pipe, cleaning and 'draining
it too. Pipes often accumulated
a killer liquid residue, which
bit and which you get in the
next lit-bowl if you didn't use
a pipe cleaner and things to
drain and dry and properly
'season' the pipe along through
its lifespan. Sometime in the
late '70's (I was gone again),
Joe Kump and his pipe shop
disappeared, replaced by
endless garden apartments.
-
This printing place, at that time,
was by no means a union-shop.
It only became one after I was
gone and it had moved to a new
building in South Plainfield, in
some industrial part type place.
Pretty nice, though it didn't last;
in a few years it was gone. The
infiltration of these union guys
had been to plan, I guess. The
last straw was a guy named
Jim Ratigan, who lived in Fords
and has a little typographer shop
in some old firehouse. When he
bought into Appellate, I was
chosen to help him, alone, with
the manual moving of all his
typecases and machinery;
no small task, into the Main
Street bank building. It was a
sizzling hot month, with plenty
of sweat on my part schlepping
all that nearly endless crap back
and forth in some sort of ratty
station-wagon Chevy they'd
purchased for the move. Jim
used to talk in exalted terms
about a printer - 'You're a
member now, remember, of
the Fourth Estate.' (That was
something about politics and
opinion molding, I think).
And he always talked of,
as a union member, having
the 'church key' - I never
did get what that was, but I
think it had to do with union
halls and meetings and all.
I liked Jim. He was about
45, with a small family. He
was a brawler, and a Weds.
night bowler at come bowling
lanes under Rt. 9 in Woodbridge.
He often came in on Thursdays
bruised and battered from yet
another fight, and often sort of
dazed and hungover too; and
he always smoked those Tiparillo
little cigars, the kind with the
wooden mouthpiece. Always
had one going. The weirdest
thing? Jim and his family went
on vacation, a trip to the beaches
of Peru - which was pretty odd
and unheard of itself, as a vacation
spot - and he never came back.
He was 'killed' it was said, the
story we got, by a poison dart
that had been propelled his way
from some reeds along the shore.
Blowgun, or something; not
ballistic or a rifle. There was
some political crap going on in
Peru, causing a lot of turmoil
about foreigners and all, and I
think these rebels were called
'Tupemaros' - except actually
they originated in Uruguay, but
what did I care; I liked the
connection between Tiparillos
and Tupemaros. That was all
I ever heard of Jim; gone then
like the wind.
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