Poet Reaches for the Sublime, Printer Grabs the Swiffer
Just getting started writing a book about lighthouse keepers. Digging up raw materials is often grueling, repetitive, and—let’s be honest—a bit dull.
But every so often, something sparkly crosses my desk.
Like this gem from the Smyrna Times, August 12, 1903:
She spent two days on a touching poem, the pivotal line of which read:
“My soul is a lighthouse keeper.”
When the printer finished with it, the line read:
“My soul is a light housekeeper.”
Proofreading: where metaphysical depth meets dusting schedules.
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Lack of proof reading in newspapers seems to be the norm these days.
I try to make sure I haven't made mistakes when writing articles, emails etc., but sometimes my eyes blink or go to sleep and miss something. Recently when writing to a friend I mentioned my husband's illness - "and in early 2083 Jim suddenly became very ill" - (should have been 2023) - when Jim read it and caught the error he laughed out loud, he is 89 years old now, am I trying to make him live forever!
Lighthouse keepers had to be a special breed, unless they had family with them it would have been a lonely solitary life. I visited the Lighthouse in the Mull of Galloway many years ago when it still had its crystal lamp, it was beautiful, some years later I went back for a second visit and the lamp had been replaced with an electric one. They had offered the crystal lamp to a museum but the offer was not taken up. So that beautiful lamp was smashed to bits and dumped in the sump. Very sad and a terrible act of vandalism, they could have made hundreds of souvenirs from it and raised money for the upkeep of the lighthouse.
I hope you finish writing your book.
I set a couple lines of lead font from a California job case in my first college printing course in 1961. It took me two hours to create those two lines – I hated it! I can't imagine creating a magazine or a book character by character with spacing that way. But those type setters had to be editors, too, in order to get the text printable for public reading.
Today,, we can get AI to write a book for us in whatever font or style we want and even color the font or mix it up, probably within 15 minutes. That error in 1908 was intentional and probably the type setter correcting the woman's poem, thereby ruining it.
Ron