In the 1940s during The War, I had a summer job as county correspondent for the Rochester daily newspapers. Typed each story (double-spaced, one side only) twice with different lead paragraphs, kept carbon copies (remember carbons?) and took my offerings to the 3 o'clock Greyhound bus for the 50-mile trip to the city.
I was instructed to clip my stories if they appeared in the fat State editions of those dailies, paste them up (minus headlines, alas) in a long roll, and every week measure that roll with a long string. As a stringer (it would be years before I ever heard the word "free-lancer") I was paid --could it have been ten cents? --per column inch.
It occurs to me only now -- why the string? Why not just take the tape measure to that roll of clippings in the first place? Did I mail in that string or something?-- can't remember.
So just now, more than 70 years later, I googled "stringer" to see if I'd remembered right, and yes, there was the word. But when Wikipedia started to discuss the etymology of "stringer" it appeared nobody knows where the term came from. The possibility that stringers were considered second-string journalists was offered. There was no mention of measuring one's clippings with string.
So I typed in my contribution. First time I ever did that, ridiculously easy, and there it stands on Wikipedia!
I've forgotten so many things -- but I remember exactly where I was standing the day in August 1944 when I phoned (long-distance !! in the middle of the day !! before the rates changed !!) to tell the State Editor that I'd be leaving to return to college.
Just one telephone in our house, on a party line (our ring was one long one short) -- and as I stood there in the kitchen that unknown Editor said -- I've forgotten a lot now but I remember his seven words exactly --
"It's been a pleasure receiving your copy."
