QUARTZ HILL MAN'S HOBBY: HOT LEAD.

Byline: Bettie Rencoret Senior columnist

Eighty-three-year-old Bill Gordon may be one of an endangered occupational species, but he's fighting extinction with all he's got.

A printer since before World War II, Gordon maintains a collection of antique printing equipment that includes two operating Linotype typesetting machines, a 1920 cylinder proof press and an antiquated hand press, plus several cabinets of type drawers chock full of old type.

His ``pride and joy'' is the cylinder press, which Gordon uses to print booklets for this area's branch of the Southern California West chapter of the National Amateur Press Association.

He prints 300 of the NAPA booklets every month and sends them to San Diego to be assembled into bundles with other journals from the western region of the association. The bundles are mailed out nationwide. One goes to an Australian member and another to a Nigerian.

``My hobby is my recreation,'' he said. ``Those bundles let us keep in touch with other typographers and printers, all of whom have become our friends. We're bound by a common interest in the printed word.''

Since the machines in his collection are no longer being manufactured, their maintenance is of prime importance.

``I have to do all my own repair work,'' he said. ``There isn't anyone else around who can do it. But I'm a mechanic at heart so I enjoy it. Let's face it, I put a transmission in my truck, I repair my presses and Linotypes. It's all play for me.''

Born in Arizona, Gordon came with his family to the Los Angeles area in 1921 and learned typography while at Long Beach Polytechnic High School.

At the behest of his Linotype teacher in 1930, he began to work at The Belnamos newspaper in Belmont Shore for experience. He worked for no pay after school and half a day on Saturday for four years.

``When I graduated in 1934 I went to a paying job over at the Royal Press,'' he said. ``But even way back then I was mechanical, so when a job opened up in an electric steam-generating plant, I took it.''

For 38 years before his retirement in 1974, he was a plant operator, working mostly for the city of Los Angeles and its Department of Water and Power. But he also had printer's ink in his blood.

In 1940 he became a ``hobby printer.'' With a small hand press, several trays of type and some equipment gleaned from his brother-in-law, he started what he named his Little Press publishing operation in his garage.

Gordon and his wife, Elza, came to Quartz Hill in 1986.

His Little Press shop is still in use but only for his own pleasure and satisfaction.

One of his Linotypes dates back to 1926. He brought it down from Oregon in 1978. The typesetter he uses most often is a newer model.

He fired it up, and fingers deftly worked the keys and the perfume of the molten lead was evident as long arms clackety-clacked the matrices into place. He lifted out a line of type.

``This is an Intertype machine with four diverse font mags,'' Gordon said. ``It was built around 1958. The Intertype came into being after the first Linotype patents ran out. I still love it.''

Able to cast lines of type - hence its name - out of hot lead, the Linotype reigned supreme in the printing and publishing industry for nearly 100 years, Gordon said.

Inevitably, a continuing drive for greater efficiency in the publishing world doomed the hot lead machine, supplanted by computerized phototypesetting gear.

``Don't misunderstand,'' Gordon said. ``The computer has done a great job for the printing industry. It has saved it. It's faster, more accurate and cleaner.''

He put out his hand and sighed as he touched his Intertype machine.

``I've stayed with the Linotype because I have one. One thing that the computer has done is kind of take away the romance of printing,'' Gordon said. ``With a computer you don't get the sights, smells and mysteries of the craft. Hardly anyone in this generation knows anything about ETAOIN SHRDLU.''

The letters ETAOIN SHRDLU are the main keys, from top to bottom, of the Linotype keyboard. The Linotype operator used the sequence to designate a spot where he had made an error. Sometimes they escaped deletion by the proofreader, interrupting the flow of a reporter's prose in newspaper articles.

``They were meant to be lifted out before publication. Sometimes they weren't and readers wondered what on earth was going on. They thought it was some kind of strange code,'' he said.

``Reporters fostered not only that concept but often hinted that the letters spelled out the name of a person,'' he laughed. ``Young people coming along won't be exposed to all that fun anymore. It's kind of sad to realize it.''

LANCASTER - All senior centers in Antelope Valley, Lancaster, Palmdale and Pearblossom, will be closed on May 25 in observance of Memorial Day.

PALMDALE - Openings are still available at the Palmdale Senior Center for the 55 Alive mature adult driving class June 25 and 26.

Registration will be at 8:30 a.m. Thursday. Class time both days is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and there is a fee of $8.

To sign up for the popular course, which is conducted under the auspices of the American Association of Retired Persons, call the center, [phone], for reservations as early as possible.

LANCASTER - Menus for the week at the senior life nutrition sites in Lancaster, Palmdale and Pearblossom have been announced. All meals include bread, margarine and coffee, tea or milk for the suggested congregate donation of $2.

Monday: Hot turkey sandwich, mashed potatoes, parsleyed carrots, marinated beets and apple.

Tuesday: Tuna casserole, rice pilaf, stewed tomatoes, Jell-O salad and pineapple.

Wednesday: Hamburger, macaroni salad, cauliflower and carrots, tomato and lettuce salad, and orange.

Thursday: Pinto beans with ham, cornbread, broccoli, tossed salad and pudding.

Friday: Baked chicken, au gratin potatoes, peas and carrots, fiesta coleslaw, and apple Betty.

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Photo

PHOTO Bill Gordon, 83, has fun with one of his antique Linotype printing machines.

Bettie Rencoret/Special to the Daily News