Once, the paper was a little late because of Jimmy Gee. Jimmy was a tall country boy, gangling, awkward, unpolished—but really friendly, in a country way. One of his jobs was to cast the molten lead plates against the masters which made up the national advertising copy. After making the castings he used large oversize asbestos gloves to handle the piping-hot lead plates and to saw them to size on the circular table saw.

This was before the days of environmental safety precautions. His gloves were marked by nicks where he had inadvertently gotten too close to the saw blades. One night, to our consternation, he cut off the tip of his left thumb. He bandaged it up and, gesticulating to me, he said, “All I did was push the casting through the blade just like this. Whoops! There went another one.” He had actually nicked another finger. After that night, Jimmy Gee was always famous for his saying, “Whoops! There went another one.”

We paperboys found lots to do when the paper was late. We almost didn’t mind because it was an opportunity to go down the alley and around the corner to Wimpy’s. For five cents we got a Wimpy burger which included a slice of ripe tomato.

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