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(Neocasts are verbose. It's just the nature of the medium. You've been warned.)
Like many of my fellow Americans, I'm doing my part to undermine the U.S. economy by declaring a personal spending freeze. To test my resolve this evening, I wandered through the office supply section of Bartell Drugs.
For those of you not of the Pacific Northwest, Bartell Drugs is your classic drug store (itself a marvelously anachronistic institution, I've written about this before). Despite its slender selection of USB cables and related doodaddery, one could safely meander the aisles of Bartell's with no knowledge that the computer age had yet arrived. The office supply section unabashedly implies that paper and pen transactions are the bread and butter of modern communications technology: old-timey carbon-backed office forms, embossing label makers (yes, they still make them; wish I'd known that when I bought this pipe wrench on eBay a few years back), old-school steno pads, and some intriguing writing implements: Parker Jotters in red and blue, PaperMate Mirados in cardboard boxes that look like old packs of Marlborough cigarettes, and then this: a pack of Mead typing paper. There was one left, sitting there looking long-abandoned by market forces, with the words 1993, The Mead Corporation, Dayton OH, Made in U.S.A. printed on the cover. Could this item have been hanging around the stockroom of Bartell's since I was a lovesick college undergraduate, waiting for its chance to be discovered by one of seven global typecasters in 2009? (I'd like to think yes.)
I'd picked up and put down a dozen pens by this point, valiantly defending the five wrinkled dollar bills lost somewhere in the bottom of my purse, when I saw the typing paper there. What made the purchase all the more foregone was the song on the faint and crackling sound system: Joni Mitchell's Help Me. (This song transports me at once to 1978: wearing my tangerine polyester double-knits and playing with my Darci urban penthouse.) No one writes lyrics like Joni Mitchell. This song kills me. Back to the typing paper, does Mead still make this stuff? If so, they won't admit it on their Web site. If you have the inside scoop, enlighten me please.
12 comments:
Be thankful that your Bartell Drugs still carries on with its wonderful office supplies. I grew up in Washington, DC, where we had a wonderful chain called "People's Drugstores." As late as the mid 1980's, People's sold such treasures as Sheaffer Skrip ink bottles with the built-in inkwell; cloth-bound ledgers with numbered pages; Blackwing, Pedigree, and Venus Velvet pencils; thesis paper (with the bright red demarcation lines)...and so much more. In addition, you could have the best cup of coffee in the world at their formica-topped luncheon counter. Coffee was served in thick Buffalo Ware cups with saucers (not mugs). Some of the older branches had marble-topped counters,art deco decor, lyre-shaped speakers from which emerged delicate, exquisite MUZAK ( a much maligned American music) and, outside, bright red-orange neons. You felt such a sense of luxury just at a drugstore! Sadly, People's became CVS. The dining services were taken out and the office supplies were reduced to the most basic. The neons were replaced with boring, generic lettering.The great linoleum floors, with their unique and not unpleasant fragrance, were covered over with carpeting!
There is one marvelous thing that HAS survived in most of today's drugstores: the marbled composition book. Rite-Aid, Walgreen's and even CVS still carry it. It is especially fun to buy in bulk during the back-to-school sales in August, when these notebooks go for as little as 50 cents apiece.
I have discovered that just because something isn't listed on the Mead Co. web site doesn't mean they don't still carry it. For example, my all-time favorite, all-purpose notebook is the Mead Cambridge wirebound, 9.5 x 7 inches, with a dobule manilla pocket following the front cover, heavy (for a notebook) cream paper, and an extra-stiff cardboard back cover. These were once readily available at most big office supply stores, then they suddenly disappeared. I called Mead's customer service line and asked about them. They did a search on some super-database of theirs and found that they were still being manufactured. I ordered a box of them. I only hope they will still be available when I need to replenish my supply.
The customer service number and customer support numbers are under the Contact Us page on their web site, and a call to one or the other of those numbers might enable you to determine whether the typing paper is still around.
By the way, if anyone is interested in those Cambridge notebooks, as for item # 06704
Wow. I keep hoping I'll hit paper gold at the thrift store -- the same one that keeps proving my weak resolve by bringing me cameras and typewriters and things -- but the best I've found thus far is a pack of half-used erasable bond, which I've heard enough about to shy away from.
It appears that school supply stores still sell Mead Typing Paper. I guess it's connected to the tendency of public school districts to hold on to antiquated technologies due to lack of funds for upgrades. Or something.
http://www.teacherstorehouse.com/product2.asp?product_key=1357
Ah, Parker Jotters. I wish all things that make me so happy were this cheap.
Down here it was the Rexall Drugstore, but they're all gone now and so are the Hav-A-Tampa cigar boxes I used to get there every August before school started. Rexall saved the boxes all year and gave them away for free. They were the best pencil boxes.
Sigh.
Someone beat me to it. I've bought it from www.teacherstorehouse.com - it's thin stuff, but seems to hold type well. I've never had "typewriter" paper before - is it supposed to be this way?
One of the most satisfying notebooks I've ever bought was some weird brand made of recycled paper in China which I found at the 99 Cent store - this was about 1990. Something about the paper interacting with a ballpoint pen just made me want to put pen to paper. Haven't seen another since.
BTW - Great blog title.
I love this stuff! When I found my first typewriter in an apartment I was cleaning out, it had two full packages of it, as well as one that was part full. I've treasured it, using only maybe a hundred of the two hundred and fifty sheets I found it, saving that unopened pack.
BUT! I have found surprises! I was poking around the college bookstore looking for some writing paper, and came up with the following happinesses:
1. Airmail paper. This stuff is amazing. Thin, but it holds up to a fountain pen! And CHEAP! Love it.
2. Typing paper. I saw this, but didn't buy any. But I mean, this is a well stocked shelf full of the stuff! Is happy.
3. Gum pad. It's like a legal pad, but without the annoying bit at the top. Just pages bound together with gum. It's thin, but holds up to pens!!!!!
Now that I've gushed, let us all give thanks for the happinesses. :D
And, to the typewriter and paper and pen gods, thank you.
I think there is a difference between onionskin and typewriter paper, right? The former is thinner than the other? Or am I cracked?
My box of onionskin if 25% cotton, 9 lb. paper. Any ideas on the specs of the Mead stuff?
Yeah, onion skin's thinner than regular tp. It's almost like tracing paper, but more opaque.
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