Type Casting
Volume 1, Issue 19 — Straight out of Central
IN THIS ISSUE, writer Ellen O’Neal offers a story about endings and beginnings, Charlie Alison provides a scene from a play about the way life could have been, Mark Pennington gives us another review of the little white dog, and there is a last word of decorum and safety.
Bicycling as Prologue
SHORT STORY
By Ellen O’Neal
1982 — Lost her bearings. Otherwise she would never have run into Maggie McCall. Probably never. But you never know. As big as the world is, it grows smaller and smaller the farther you step back. And Carol had stepped as far back as the edge of her map.
Not in a geographic way, really. More along the metaphorical line. Unsettled. Unsure about what was next. Frustrated by things beyond her control. She had trekked by bicycle through this region numerous times and knew where to find help if and when the bicycle acted up. At the moment, her bicycle had just passed “if” and theatrically entered “when,” and if the bicycle were an actor in this little drama, it was the overwrought, emotive sort right now, prattling plaintively for the last two hours in its own iambic kilometer. Whenever Carol pedaled, the bottom bracket — that fat barrel where the pedals and cranks turn the chain — sounded as though a new bus driver was grinding into second without aid of a clutch. With each pedal stroke, her whole bicycle shivered a racket. So she had quit pedaling. She pushed the loaded bicycle up the short steep spots and coasted a lot down the Wishka River valley to reach the town of Aberdeen, which is itself several steps removed from the big world and a good spot to watch it all.
As she rolled down to Pascal’s bicycle shop, he stood in the doorway, a wrench in one hand and a greasy, blackened rag in the other. He was a character. Dark, tousled hair and black beard with flecks of gray. He wore a blacksmith’s apron and faded blue jeans tucked into calf-high, lace-up leather moccasins. A crimson bandana around his neck. Carol had heard that he was descended from early French-Canadian settlers here in Washington. She had interviewed him two years earlier for a newspaper profile. He did not talk a lot, so she wasn’t sure about the ancestry.
“Pascal,” she said as she approached, “my bicycle has got some racket going on in the bracket.”
“A racket in the bracket?” he asked. “Pull your stuff off the bicycle, Carol, and I’ll have a look at it.” He went inside.
It took her a few minutes to get everything off — a handlebar bag, the front panniers, the rear panniers, the tent, a sleeping bag and new sleeping pad. She was packin’ for bear, as they say. You never know what you’ll need on the road, so she brought near everything.
Pascal came back out and saw the pile of gear.
“I think I see the problem,” he said. “You got too much frigging freight on your bicycle, Carol. No wonder your bearings sound like duck clucks.”
“Ducks quack, chickens cluck,” Carol said.
“Duckling clucking, chicken quacking. Who cares what you call it,” Pascal replied. “The racket will return like a hungry wolf as long as you keep all this frigging freight on the bicycle. There are structural limits.”
Carol promised to lighten the load, and he rolled the bicycle inside to his work stand. She knew she should follow him inside to learn how to pull the bearings, clean them, replace them and then repack them with fresh grease, but she didn’t have the mentality to be a gearhead, not that Pascal did either. He owned the only bicycle shop within a hundred miles, so working on the gear came along with surviving in the bicycle business. He went to work on Carol’s bicycle.
Outside, beneath the shop’s front awning, Carol sat on a stool and ate a banana while scanning a map of the coast, waiting for the bicycle’s ailment to be remedied. Looking up, she saw another bicycle traveler coming into town, a young woman who rode across the Wishkah River bridge and spotted Carol. At first Carol thought she was darkly tanned and then realized she was Black. The young woman rode up and asked: “Fastest way to the ocean?”
“Left on 101,” Carol said, pointing to the intersection just ahead. “And as soon as you cross the Chehalis, stay right on 105. Twenty miles to Twin Harbors State Park. Good shoulder all the way.”
“Thank you,” the traveler said, pedaling off with a big smile and a cheer of “all right then.” Carol stepped off her stool to the corner of the shop and looked after the rider, wishing she knew the girl’s name and her story. Where had she come from? Where was she going? Carol rarely saw women out touring, and she wanted to let out an “all right,” herself. Go Girls.
Carol shouted inside to Pascal that she would cross the street to get groceries. Not more frigging freight, he said in reply and a bit too curtly. By the time Carol got back he was done with the repairs.
What are the damages, she asked, intending to get the cost, but Pascal took her literally.
“You had a bearing that cracked in two,” he said. “I’ve never seen it before, but its two halves were causing all the noise and no small amount of grief to your other bearings. Just the slightest scratching on the cups inside the bracket though. Nothing to worry about. All new bearings. New grease. You are good to go. Except for that pile of frigging freight. I’ll do you a deal, Carol. I will trade you square, the cost of my work on the bearings for half of your frigging freight, yes?”
“What do I owe you?”
“You will not get a better deal, Carol. Think how much rubber you will save on your tires,” Pascal said.
“Check, please, Pascal.”
He relented. “Let me see — a dollar and seventy-five cents for each of the two sets of bearings, five dollars for labor, and six percent for the new state surtax. How much is that?”
“The total or the tax?” she asked.
“The tax.”
“Make it fifty-two cents,” she said.
He thumbed through the numbers and said, “Right, so total is nine dollars and two cents, and if you want my two cents worth … ”
“Which I think you’ve mentioned before,” she mumbled toward the ground.
“… Get rid of that frigging freight or you can expect to see me back here for broken spokes as soon as you make your first climb into the Cascades.”
“Pascal,” she said, “it is not easy to leave it all behind. I do not know where I am headed or what I will need.”
“You need a lighter load, Carol. At least get rid of that typewriter.”
Ellen O’Neal is a writer working on a novel about America, and this short piece will probably become part of it.
Leaves in the Trees: Scene 3
PLAY
By Charlie Alison
Setting: Newsroom of the Morning News-Free Herald in the early 1990s. Four typewriters piled in a corner and new boxy computers on each desk with a dozen wires leading in all directions from them. Three news staff members join in conversation: older, longtime police and courts reporter MARGIE; middle-aged former star athlete and photographer SKIP; and young, newly hired city reporter PEGGY. Unseen initially, but also mentioned is the editor, MICHAEL.
PEGGY: So the reporter I replaced, what was he like?
MARGIE: Daft. He was as daft as Cheese Whiz on a funnel cake.
SKIP: Yeah, he put the “aft” in “daft.”
MARGIE: The “mo” in “moron.”
SKIP: The “tempt” in “contemptible.”
MARGIE: The “ass” in “crass.”
SKIP: The “oooo” in “fool.”
PEGGY: So, Mike fired him?
MARGIE: Didn't have to.
SKIP: Left on his own.
MARGIE: Just as soon as we got him a new job.
PEGGY: You got him a job?
SKIP: Yeah, we sent his resume down to the Corrections Facility at Springfield.
PEGGY: What? The minimum security prison? And he took a job there?
MARGIE: Well, we might have implied that the [air quotes] “corrections department” was a team of renowned copy editors.
SKIP: Or he might have implied it to himself all on his own. I don’t think he had the wherewithal to infer it.
[LAUGHTER]
MARGIE: But now that you’re here, Peggy — young and understanding in the zen ways of technology — um, Skip and I were hoping you might learn us these new-fangled computers.
PEGGY: Sure, but really, they’re just like a souped-up electric typewriters.
MARGIE: Well, imagine that our little newspaper skipped that electronic typewriter fad. What do we need to know?
PEGGY: Oh! Oh, dear. You do understand electricity, right?
SKIP: We’re not that old, kid. But if I had wanted to learn how to type on computers, I would have gone to business college.
MARGIE: If I had wanted to learn how to use a computer, I would have … well, I would have been born 20 years later.
PEGGY: You’ll hate me, but I’m enjoying learning how to type on a computer. I think it could be the technological advance that makes life easier for us.
[MICHAEL ENTERS from OFFICE during Peggy’s last line.]
MICHAEL: Make life easier? Technology? Never. If you had ever read Archimedes’ Guide to Moving, second edition, you would know that Archimedes invented the fulcrum and lever so that his brother-in-law would have an easier time moving things.
PEGGY: And, didn’t it work?
MICHAEL: His brother-in-law thought it would, even told people the new technology would make his life easier.
PEGGY: And so…?
MICHAEL: He ended up with twice as many people asking him to move things. Twice! [Feigning woman’s voice] Ooh, did you hear that Archimedes’ brother-in-law has that new fangled fulcrum and lever.
SKIP: [Feigning second woman] Why, yes, do you think he could move my piano upstairs.
MICHAEL: I don’t know why not. His advertisements say he has the biggest fulcrum and the longest lever.
SKIP: [Giggles] Oooh, hoo, hoo, hoo, hooo.
MARGIE: [deadpan] Suddenly, I find myself halfway interested in technology.
MICHAEL: Now, get back to work and pray that no one else invents anything new.
[MICHAEL goes back to office.]
MARGIE: Well, I do miss my old typewriter. I could punch those keys and slam the return. I could heard the rhythm of my work in the racket of the machine. These new computer keyboards are so quiet, I forget where I am halfway through a word like “impignorate.”
[MARGIE, PEGGY AND SKIP SING “DAYS GONE BY”]
MARGIE:
I long to hear the symphony
Of typewriters tapping out a melody,
But those are days gone by, those are days gone by.
I can still hear every clickety-clack
And the ring of a bell as the carriage swings back
To days gone by.
[BRIDGE: Melody with choreographed dance.]
PEGGY:
I wish I'd gone to college, how
I could have used the extra knowledge now,
But that was yesterday, yes, that was yesterday.
If I had known more about the Roman empire
It might have sparked my lead about the three-alarm fire,
That burned bright yesterday.
BRIDGE
SKIP:
Baseball, football, track and field.
Rock'em, sock'em, never yield.
I could have been someone, I could have been someone.
Bones pop, legs stop, then I fall.
Mend me, send me to the hospital
I could have been someone.
BRIDGE
[IN UNISON, each SINGER sings their respective verse overlapping in harmony until the final line.]
SKIP: I could have been someone.
PEGGY: But that was yesterday.
ALL: And those are days gone by.
Chronicles of the Little White Dog
By Mark Pennington
The little white dog loves my wife above all other things. Time not spent with her is wasted time. Every morning she follows my wife into the home office and spends the day with her, unless she barks and gets booted out, in which case she mopes around the house till she’s re-admitted.
This morning my wife inadvertently shut the office door in her face, leaving her outside. I could tell her feelings were hurt so I said, “Let’s get some breakfast,” took her downstairs and fed her. Then I let her out for her morning patrol of the yard, and then I let her back in. She lay moping at the foot of the stairs. “Want to go up and see Lynda?” I asked. She literally leapt into the air, all four feet off the ground, then stood on her back legs and clapped her paws, then leapt again, then spun in circles. I carried her up and opened the door for her. She ran in with tail wagging and without a backward glance. It felt great.
The Last Word
déçus et tutamen | 'de-kus ɛt tu'ta-men
When King Charles II became king of England, Scotland and Ireland upon the 1660 restoration of the monarchy, a loyal subject named John Evelyn became a member of several do-gooder commissions for such things as improving the streets and buildings of London, examining charitable foundations, taking care of the sick and wounded seamen, and providing care and proper treatment of prisoners of war. He also served as a commissioner of the Royal Mint.
In this latter role, Evelyn became a staunch hater of “clippers” — those rapscallions who shaved thin slivers of silver and gold off the smooth edges of coins and then combined the slivers for their own tidy profit. Writing in his history of coins, Evelyn made clear his disdain:
And now we have mention’d Laws relating to the Mints, one cannot without just Indignation, but deplore the unsufferable Abuse of it, by that cursed Race and Swarms of Clippers, and their Associates in Iniquity, who with an Insolence unparallel’d, and such as perhaps no Age or Record of History (that of Henry the Third’s excepted, yet not coming up to this Degree) ever mention’d persist and go on still to justify their Practice (as if were no Crime at all) tho’ one of the most wicked, injurious and diabolical Villanies Men can be guilty of.1
To thwart this criminal calumny, Evelyn suggested the idea of inscribing Decus & Tutamen along the edge of coins. The words loosely mean an “ornament and safeguard.” The commission also proposed the idea of creating a crenellation along the edge in its order issued 360 years ago:
Wee doe hereby Commande and authorize you to cause to be put upon the Edges or thicknesse of Our peeces of ffive shillings and of two shillings and Six pence in silver theis words folowing that is to say Decus et Tutamen, and upon the Ringe or edges of Our shilling, you are to raise a small straight or Crosse grayning only to be put as you shall judge it most Secure for Our shilling.2
Both of these measures — the engraved edge and the graining — prevent a coin’s edge from being clipped without the fact being immediately apparent. As the practice of clipping faded, so did the need for edge inscriptions. They were brought back in 1983 to help reduce counterfeiting. Not only was Decus et Tutamen used for English pound coins, but other phrases were added over the next four decades:
Scotland — Nemo Me Impune Lacessit, or “No one attacks me with impunity”
Wales — Pleidiol Wyf I’m Gwlad, or “True am I to my country”
London — Domine Dirige Nose, or “Lord, guide us”
Belfast — Pro Tanto Quid Retribuamus, or “For so much, what shall we give in return?”
Cardiff — Y Ddraig Goch Ddyry Cichwyn, or “The red dragon will give the lead”
The equivalent protection in American coins, of course, is the crenellation on the edges of dimes, quarters, half dollars and silver dollars, although no engraving of words is used.
The wording along the edge is typically engraved to be read with the obverse side up, which depicts Queen Elizabeth in profile, but occasionally the engraving is struck with the coin upside down. These latter coins become more collectable and valuable than a single English pound, too valuable for a smart clipper to consider shaving off an edge. In 2016 Great Britain introduced a revised version of the pound coin, Rather than being round, it is shaped with twelve sides, another effort to thwart counterfeiting. The word for a twelve-sided shape is dodecagon, and that’s the last word.
Other Contributors to this Issue
Editor of Insights — Lou Minnessens
Adviser on Impermanence — Tim Porarry
Curator of Coins — Penny Foryerthots
John Evelyn, Numismata 224 (London, Benjamin Tooke 1697)
Marvin Lessen, “Notes on Simon’s Pattern (Petition) Crown of Charles II.” PDF accessed May 25, 2022.