In Memoriam: Meg Jones | Reporter | Raconteur | Friend to Many

 

Meg Jones with Skyriter Typewriter
Photo by J.A. Jablonski (c) 2018

Two years ago Meg Jones, reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and I met up at a coffee shop on Milwaukee's East Side. I had something to give her: a typewriter. Not just any typewriter, a Skyriter. The Skyriter was popular with journalists and war correspondents due its small size, portability (only 9 lbs including its metal case), and reliable action. In the 1970s, the case was updated to a soft-sided thing so that reporters, writers, and travel writers could tuck it under their airplane seats.

Meg Jones was both journalist and war correspondent. I admired the heck out of her and regular read her stories in JSOnline. I wanted her to have her own "reporter's typewriter." Five years before she'd already typed on the very machine I gave her, though she might not have remembered it that day in January 2018.

Meg Jones typing on a Skyriter Typewriter in 2013
Photo by J.A. Jablonski (c) 2018

I used to collect typewriters. In 2013, Meg contacted me. Somehow she'd heard about me and these machines. I posted about that interview here. This is how I described how it came about:

"She googled typewriters AND Milwaukee, and my post about last year's Summer Solstice Type-In came up.  Like any reporter worth her salt, she tracked me down and asked if she could call.  And like a good librarian, I said, "Sure, I have lots of info you could use for a story." 

Meg called, we talked for about 30 minutes.  Then, offhandedly, she asked, "So how many typewriters do you have?"  "Well," I says, "about 25."  Then came that amusing nano-second pause and Meg asked, "Would you mind if I came over to your house to see them? Oh, and could I bring a photographer?"

It was a lovely afternoon's conversation. Meg was delightful and completely interested in everything. Talking to her was like talking to an old friend. She said she liked to make her own short report videos on her phone and might I please type something for background noise. (That's her typing at the end with me holding her phone over her shoulder.)

Her JS Online Video

From 2013 on we'd run into each other now and then, usually on the way in to a Brewers game at Miller Park. She was a serious fan. She'd stop for a friendly chat but then promptly motored off with great intent. She wanted to see everything game-related: batting practice, pregame, everything! One got the feeling that life itself was that to her: to be seen in total.

She was so excited to receive the Skyriter--wanting to know where it came from, if anyone had used it for writing before her. I had to admit that I'd gotten it via eBay and didn't know. We followed each other on Twitter then, and exchanged snail mail addresses to correspond, and for the couple years since she sent me her holiday letters. They were a blast to read! She SO enjoyed her work, her travel, and the people she met. They were travelogues in and of themselves.

Back in September Milwaukee's own Boswell Books hosted Iranian novelist Salar Abdoh for a conversation about his latest book Out of Mesopotamia, in which Abdoh discussed the "endless war" from a Middle Eastern perspective. Meg Jones was the host for the conversation, and oh my, was it fascinating. I've watched a lot of book launch interviews and this was anything but. Abdoh and Jones were of a kind and clearly respected each others' war reporting experiences.

Salar Abdoh Virtual Event for Boswell Book Company
Host: Meg Jones | Runtime: 59 min

Not too long ago I got another of her letters. She told me what she'd been doing and where she'd been of late. Then she thanked me again for the Skyriter. She had it on display in her guest bedroom, she said.

Meg Jones' obituary is here. You can hear her vibrancy, her joy, her professionalism throughout. And you can hear how much she will be missed by her colleagues and friends.

Rest in Peace, Meg. Rest in Power. Thank you for what you gave us all. How you will be missed.

Happy Solstice 2016

"Winter is the time for comfort,
for good food and warmth,
for the touch of a friendly hand
and for a talk beside the fire:
it is the time for a home."

                    — Edith Sitwell

 

 

 

 

 

 

May the deeply dark star-filled nights,

the cold, bright mornings, and

the long shadows of afternoon silences

be yours and be for all who share your path.

 

 

 

Happy Solstice (2015)

May the delight of the child's heart be yours.

May your home be filled with solace, joy, and laughter.

May you have stories to tell and memories to share.

May you see beauty in unexpected places.

May there be magic, wonder, and tales of travel for you.

May the deeply dark star-filled nights,

the cold, bright mornings, and

the long shadows of afternoon silences

be yours and be for all who share your path.

And please, oh all that be, let there be peace on earth.

A First Day and a Last Day

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I got a phone call yesterday afternoon from someone I used to work with some 30 years ago.  She called to tell me that someone we both had worked with back then died unexpectedly of a stroke she'd suffered a few days ago.  Her name was Lisa. And although I rarely thought of her in the many years since, I have always cherished her for the gift she gave me shortly before I left the job.

She called me into her office and said she needed to tell me something.  What she told me was that many of my colleagues were finding it difficult to work with me; that I was too full of myself, basically, and that I needed to chill out. She had more to say, describing a few incidents to show me what she meant.  I sat there, stunned and embarrassed.  She was blushing and quiet too as she spoke; it wasn't an easy thing for her to do.

She was right.  I was all that and probably more.  I was young and full of the arrogance a young person can have before they realize there are other people in the world besides oneself. I still blush thinking of our conversation for I still have moments of arrogance. 

Many other things have happened since then to temper my temper and teach me how use my skills for good, but more, and very much because of Lisa, I am more humble and careful with people.  She gave me a gift of a mirror, a mirror I still carry with me.

So today is a day of remembering Lisa and feeling grateful for what she did for me that day. 

Gratitude is a powerful thing.  

L.S.

Requiescat in pace et in amore.

Professor Remington Makes the Front Page!

Above the fold!

 

One does not often get the chance to say it, but here I go: I made it to the Front Page this morning! 

A few weeks ago I received an email from Meg Jones, reporter for our local Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  She'd seen the recent NBC News item on the resurgence of typewriters and became curious about the typospherian scene here in Milwaukee. Right outside the offices of the Journal Sentinel is a plaque commemorating Christopher Latham Sholes, she told me: "Of course I was interested!" she said.

"The first typing machine created by Sholes, a Wisconsin state legislator and editor at the Milwaukee Sentinel in the 1860s, was wooden with piano-like keys. He continued to work on the invention, refining the typewriters manufactured at Kleinstubers machine shop, one block north of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel building." [from this morning's article]

(I didn't know that Sholes was an editor for our local paper back then! Somehow I feel this typewriterly obsession of mine has come full circle.)  

She googled typewriters AND Milwaukee, and my post about last year's Summer Solstice Type-In came up.  Like any reporter worth her salt, she tracked me down and asked if she could call.  And like a good librarian, I said, "Sure, I have lots of info you could use for a story." 

Meg called, we talked for about 30 minutes.  Then, offhandedly, she asked, "So how many typewriters do you have?"  "Well," I says, "about 25."  Then came that amusing nano-second pause and Meg asked, "Would you mind if I came over to your house to see them? Oh, and could I bring a photographer?"

That lovely little request turned into one heck of a fun few days.  I got out ALL my machines, something I'd never done.  We put an extra leaf in our dining room table and I was able to get almost all of the machines onto it (3 had to go on the sideboard).  We put up the Professor Remington billboard and a small display of typewriter-related 'accessories.'

Mike De Sisti, Multimedia Picture Editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, came by one afternoon for still shots and video.  He seemed to enjoy seeing the machines as much as I enjoyed showing them! I had fun watching him do his job as well. (I used to do in-class and in-office video work of my lectures when I taught for the University of Pittsburgh's School of Information Sciences, so I was curious about the cameras and other technology he used for his work.)

 The green dino on the right found a new home that day too!

The topic of collecting came up.  It got to be a joke for the entire day that while I had these many machines I resisted being called a collector. "The only other thing I've actually, intentionally collected," I told Mike, "is plastic dinosaurs." (In my next life I want to be a paleontologist!)  So I was delighted to hear that Mike's 4-year old daughter is a BIG dino fan! WooHoo! I'd found the perfect recipient for a tall stuffed dino I'd gotten almost 20 years ago in California. Watching Mike leave our flat, with all his camera equipment hanging all over him and the dino tucked under his arm is definitely one of my more special memories of that afternoon.

 Hanging with The Media, a.k.a. Mike De Sisti

[From Mr. De Sisti's Pulitzer Center profile] "Mike De Sisti has been the multimedia picture editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for four years. He oversees multimedia production and training, shoots general still assignments and works on the picture desk as a picture editor. His love of video storytelling started when he was 9 with his first 8mm camera. He has documented several major professional sporting events, including the Super Bowl and the MLB All-Star Game, as well as several presidential races. De Sisti graduated in 1996 from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale with a fine art photography degree."

Mike recently took this and these other photos of the Canada Goose who chose to build her nest this year right on one of our main downtown bridges! You can see more of his work for JSOnline here.

Meg Jones stopped by later that evening. Having googled her beforehand (I'm a librarian, recall, we love to know stuff!), I knew what she looked like and that she'd done some fine work on Wisconsin soldiers and veterans. What I didn't know was what a delight she is to talk with. We chatted for almost two hours, and she got to play with some of the machines. 

As someone who does not do well talking and taking notes, I was impressed by Meg's easy style of interviewing.  She had a small notepad (yes, just like you'd think a 'real' journalist would!) and wrote without much looking at her pen and managing to keep up a friendly and curious flow of conversation all the while. 

I was especially pleased to show her the Smith Corona Skyriter and Facit TP1, both machines favored by journalists.  (In the video for the JSOnline story, the machine she is using at the end is the Skyriter.)

Meg Jones checks out a Smith Corona Skyriter.

Meg Jones in a much more dangerous situation.

[from this JSOnline article] "Journal Sentinel reporter Meg Jones sits atop a sandbag bunker to transmit photos, story and a weblog from the roof of Patrol Base Olson in Samarra, Iraq, in 2005."

See the complete article, "Meg Jones' work in the trenches is honored." at this link.

You can look over some 100 or so items by Meg at the JSOnline at this link.

Rather than swipe all of Meg and Mike's good work, I am going to send you over to the story at the newspaper's site to read the tale, see all the very cool photos, and watch the video. Click on the image to see the article.

Hats off, and many thanks, to Top-Knotch reporter Meg Jones and Ace Photographer, Mike De Sisti!  I had a blast that afternoon and now my Mom gets to brag on one of her kids!

_____________________________________

p.s. The Oliver 5 referred to looks like this:

 Image source/credit

p.p.s  And the NBC News video, in case you missed it:




 

From Mars to Eternity

Ray Bradbury

Author * Imagineer

August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012

". . . therefore, seeing that our brother has taken the Universe unto himself, we commend his spirit to the night, and to the stars from which he came—knowing that by so doing, the night shall never lack for starlight, or our lives for our beloved brother's memory, till time’s end . . . .”

 

Text, slightly modified, from

Duane, Diane (2000-09-22)
The Wounded Sky (Star Trek: The Original Series) 
(Kindle Locations 3512-3514). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.  

Sunday Drive Typewriters

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Two of my brothers, The Captain and Storyteller, love cars.  I mean they love cars!  Between them they've bought, repaired, sold, and owned dozens of cars over the years.  Storyteller, especially, has the eye for fine old machines (for which he is an artist at bringing back to glorious, well-running, well-painted life).  The Captain seemed to have a knack for finding those cars we liked to describe as being owned by sweet, old grandmas who only took them out of the garage once a week to drive to church and the grocery store.

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My Beloved Spousal Unit -- he who can turn a phrase with the precision of a metalworking lathe master and the wit of a Samuel Johnson -- has developed the knack for finding interesting old typewriters of the Sunday drive variety.  In the past 2 weeks he has found two at two different Goodwill stores.  One was made in the 1970s and the other the 1940s. 

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I'd pretty much given up finding decent machines at our main store after they rearranged the shelving to be able to sell all the old monster TVs people donated after buying new monster, flat screen TVs.  

UNDERWOOD 319 

Back in 2010, Swiss typospherian Adwoa Bagalini posted about a 319 that she had cleaned up to sell: "Underwood, the great American typewriter manufacturer, was acquired by famed Italian typewriter manufacture Olivetti in the 1960s. The merged company continued to manufacture typewriters under the name of Olivetti Underwood or Underwood Olivetti. In the late 70s, however, the Underwood name was revived and used on machines that the company manufactured in Spain. One of these was the Underwood 319."

Ms. Bagalini's typer  had a black plastic cover, giving the machine a bit of a penguin flair.  The machine I have has a taupe/grey cover; the typewriter itself is only slightly lighter in shade.

The 319's profile is lean and unassuming.

The keys of the 319 are 'pillowy' and horizontally narrow.  Also narrow is the space allotted for the rows of keys.  I have large hands and find it difficult to type evenly on this machine.  The action of the keys, though, is pretty snappy.

SMITH CORONA STERLING

Alan Seaver, on his very grand site Machines of Loving Grace says of his beautiful 1940s-era Sterling "this is one of my favorite typers, both to look at and to use."  I very much agree.

I was in the book section when my Beloved Spousal Unit came over and said that there was a typewriter "I might want to take a look at."  It was the excited tone in his voice that caught me (for had I not recently told him that I'd decided I wouldn't be getting any more machines?).

Its case looked a little battered, but I knew immediately there was something of beauty within!  When I opened it up, though, I think I actually gasped in surprise.

 

After running through the usual check to make sure all the parts were working, I got out the small sheet of paper in my wallet "just in case" I need to type something in a store such as this.  The classic phrase The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog emerged.  My husband and I both laughed.  You could tell by the sound alone that the machine was in beautiful condition!  

So, Dear Reader, this is when I realized I had become a Collector.  At least of this machine.  Owning this one, I realize there are others in my collection I no longer "need."  But when and how those others move on to other homes is a tale for another day.