My Redacted Life: Chapter Four (Cont._3)

The company I was working for now was busy. Tension and fear swirled around the floor of the drafting room like snakes in a swamp. There were 17 projects due for completion in less than two months and not a one had been completed. On top of that, more work was coming in.

I had been asked to help, so I pitched in. I began by asking for a list the projects due. There wasn't one. "They just pile them up and we do them."

Ahh.

I had to learn the procedure pretty much on my own. In those days, documents such as these were done by the offset printing process. Each page was photographed, the photograph imprinted on a plate, and the plate used to coat the ink, in proper form, to the paper.

The printing was being done by a man named Bob French at a company, long vanished, called Graham Blueprint. The only proof I have that it ever existed is a small mirror that once contained a calendar. That mirror has checked my hard-featured face for over 40 years.

Everyone called the printer "Frenchy," but I never was certain that he liked it so I called him Bobby.  The photographer was Bob Wilson. He didn't talk a lot and one had to handle him carefully.

The process was only a little complicated with simple black and white printing and half-tones. It got hairy with the colored sheets used for land uses and zoning districts. We couldn't afford a highly expensive photo process for these, so the drafter prepared them by hand. A sheet of red film was placed over the map of the city and carefully aligned with register marks. Anything red wouldn't show up when photographed. So wherever a block of color was to go, the film had to be cut away with great precision. The drafter prepared a separate sheet for each three runs of colored ink, red, yellow and blue, printed over the black base

Of course maps used more than the three primary colors. They were mixed to produce a plethora (I've always wanted to use that word) of colors. Mixing was done by reducing the intensity of the colors with various screens. It was a "hairy process" and that's all I have to say on that subject, except to suggest that you think about that next time you hit the button that says, "print."

I got with the typist and made my own list of projects. I then noted them by complexity. A few were simple little "boilerplate" jobs that didn't take much time, expertise, or education.

I offered to do these, so the drafters could concentrate on the ones that needed maps and drawings.

You would have thought I had just laid out a new technique for removing a brain tumor.

I drew up a simple cover sheet for one of cities. We could use it on all that city's reports by simply changing the color of ink for each report.

Damn, but that was a good idea. It sure would save lots of time.

I mastered the process of punching and binding the collated reports, and within two days had delivered the first complete report, in multiple copies, to Jim and Tom.

They were impressed. The drafters were happy because I let them take the credit. The tension in the drafting room lessened a bit.

I went home and congratulated myself with a bottle of Ripple Wine. This city planning stuff was going to be a piece of cake. One down, 16 to go. Life was good.

Next day, the shit hit the fan.

Don't worry. Mr. Cool
is on the job.