Mr. Meers

Mr. Meers is 88. He is a former commercial printer. Several months ago, he put an ad out for an open house of all his printing equipment. I offered to help him out with the dirty work of packing and sorting and things in exchange for some supplies. We got together and talked about printing, politics, government, gentrification and everything else. He's got a lot to say.

As we talked he commented on how his knees don't work so well anymore. See, he had some new ones installed about 5 years ago, but they are acting up. When I inquired as to why his old knees went bad, he said "I wore them out. When we were shot down." I asked him to continue, "Shot down? From a plane?" His reply had a tone of 'Don't you know?' when he said, "Yeah, we were bombing Germany and we were shot down." (If he was younger, I'm sure that would have been followed up with a "Duh!") He then went on to explain that he was shot down and taken to a hospital in Budapest, where he received a very strange greeting. As he tells it, he was in his hospital bed and other patients, doctors and nurses were staring and whispering and giggling about him. They were being really nice, and everyone wanted to get a look at him. He eventually asked why he was getting so much of this attention, and was informed that a rumour had been started that Mr. Meers, being from Chicago, was a famous Chicago Ganster. Al Capone style.

That was the funny part. After his recuperation, it got worse. He was transferred to a Gestapo high-security prison camp, but the camp was overfull. Major Meers remained unprocessed for two years. He was P.O.W./M.I.A. until

The Great Escape.

Yes, The Great Escape. Not the movie, the Actual. Here's the nutshell version: At this high security 'escape-proof' prison, a group of P.O.W.s made a plan to escape, and break out about 250 other prisoners. It was elaborate, with an Escape Committee, code-words, forged documents, tunnels- the whole nine yards. It was also a failure. Only about 75 people got out of the tunnels. Fifty were captured and murdered by the Gestapo, and only 3 actually made it to neutral territory. With 50 spaces now open in the prison camp, Major Meers got a space and his papers were processed which lead to his release and return home.

I've grown quite fond of Mr. Meers. He's quite a clever guy! Such a wonderful sense of humor he has, and a bit of a naughty streak... While helping him with all this printing equipment, I keep coming across old Nudie Magazines. He insists they aren't his, he don't know who put them there. Or that a friend's wife wanted them out of said friends' house, so Kind hearted Mr. Meers did the fellow a favour and graciously took three boxes of Playboys off his hands.

Ok Mr. Meers. I believe you.

Cleaning Out the basement

And the garage. And the other garage. And the front room. and the room behind the other garage.
And the stuff in the corner of basement of the room of the other garage.

Yes. I am helping a fantastic old fellow, name of Meers, to clean out his, ahem, collection of letterpress and industrial printing equipment. That he's been saving for 60 years.

Seriously.

Right now, we are working on liquidating three Linotype machines and allllllllllllllll the stuff that goes with them. (Bids? Anyone? Anyone?)

I'm becoming the eBay Queen! Hopefully I'll have a good amount of money to give Mr. Meers when it sells. He can really use it.