“Why would I ever wanna lay off him?”

During my post-stroke employ at the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper I learned how to OCR scan.
OCR is “optical-character-recognition.” A scanner and computer scan a document to generate a computer text-file.
Usually “Letters-to-the-Editor” were done at home on a word-processor and printer — a slam-dunk to OCR scan.
I could even scan typewritten documents. Hand-written no. An actual typist had to be the computer. My job-title was “typist,” but I never typed anything. My forte was computer-tricks. I could generate reams of page-filling copy.
My stroke destroyed a few things. But apparently left enough to engineer computer-tricks.
One day a manager came downstairs to our newsroom to OCR scan something. “Ya know, I bet I could do that,” I said to her.
“I bet you could,” she said. “Here, watch me.”
Levers and buttons galore = no idea what she was doing. But I’m gonna figger it out. Engage guile-and-cunning. I did.
Soon the Executive Editor was handing me word-processor Letters-to-the-Editor. I could usually turn around two or three in a couple hours.
Discussion followed. I began editing = making letters say what they meant.
“Hey BossMan; ya sure ya want me doing this?”
“Publish as-written and we look stupid,” he answered. “Beyond that what the writer meant often gets lost in contorted syntax and bad grammar.”
One day I got an extremely well-written letter. I was suspicious. Well-written isn’t Canandaigua.
I fired up Rush Limbaugh’s website, and there was the letter. Just copy/paste and sign yer name to it.
“Hey BossMan, looka this!”
“Wow! We’re not publishing that! Only locally-written, and Canandaigua residents aren’t Limbaugh’s lackeys.”
During my employ a hatchet-man was hired as “Executive Vice-President.” As a REPUBLICAN he wanted to lay me off. Stroke-survivors are just baggage.
The Executive-Editor overrode him: “Why would I ever wanna lay him off? He’s giving me two or three ready-to-run Letters-to-the-Editor per day.”
That Executive-Editor since died of a heart-attack. He graduated the same college as me, although I’m ’66 and he’s ’80.
I think that college, Houghton, can take credit for making us both sticklers for correctness. Erroneous spelling and bad grammar/syntax drove us up-the-wall.
Beyond that the Messenger newspaper was staffed by whackos. I fit right in.
I always thank that Executive-Editor for keeping me around. In my humble opinion, the fact I recovered so well from a stroke is partly because of that newspaper.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke. Prior to my stroke I drove transit-bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke ended that after 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).