An experience to rememher

When I wrote about fragrances yesterday, I remembered one odor that I didn't mention - that of ammonia. Fifty years ago I worked for a newspaper where my job was to read and proof the full page ads printed by the newspaper, and these pages were processed in an ammonia bath. After I had perused these pages with the attending fumes for an hour or so, I was almost intoxicated. It usually took me about three hours to finish this task, and it would take me a good hour to recover afterward. My job was to read for accuracy and I was expected to catch and correct any misprint that I found. Since the printers were not averse to enlivening their lives with a few jokes, sometimes I was treated to some pretty narrow escapes. I particularly remember one Saturday special which featured a local celebrity, both an heiress and an adventurer. Her name was Louise Boyde and her mansion was a prominent feature of the San Rafael landscape. The front page of the Saturday special featured a frontal photograph of Louise, or it should have. But one of the printers inserted a snapshot of some decrepit old gentleman making a face showing off the fact that he was toothless. The magazine came out with the wrong picture on it, and our usually unflappable editor was livid when he saw it. "Who proofed this?" he demanded, waving the picture in our faces. I remembered reading this, but couldn't remember if I had corrected it. I nearly sank through the floor as I confessed that it was I who had read it. "Go get the proof," he demanded. Down the corridor I hurried, all eyes upon me. Ah! Here it was! To this day, I can see in my mind's eye that proof. I had indeed read it, and I had circled the picture in black pencil, with the words scrawled in large letters "This is Louise Boyd?" The editor snatched the proof and I can only imagine the tonguelashing he gave the printer. I must say, however, that Louise was a good sport. She bought all of the copies she could get her hands on and gleefully gave them out to her friends and family, Another ad, this time a full-page ad for a local market, featured a special on fresh crab. Unfortunately the b was printed as a p, giving the ad a totally new meaning. The market manager was given a corrected ad at no cost, and put the erroneous ad in full sight in his window, with the notation underneath that it was indeed a bargain. The poor soul who proofed this ad was so mortified that she quit and we never saw her again.
Some apparent errors, though I suspect they were made on purpose, included a memo that some local speaker had been given a round of applesauce (applause) for her speech, and the notation that two of the local duck hunters had been pleased to bag their limit of five ducks, with the letter f inserted instead of the d. All of this was long ago, but I am happy to remember them now. Those were the days!