Middleton's Fish Building Supply & Me

Must’ve been the Summer of ’66. I was only 16 and I don’t even know how it happened but I was presented with an opportunity that was life-changing.

My Dad, Hjalmar "Pete" Forsmo, worked at Fish Building Supply in Middleton. He’d been a carpenter with his own business for years followed by stints as an expediter with a couple of different builders in town. He was working at the pre-hung door plant. 

Back then Fish had its own print shop primarily producing the catalog that was always available as you walked in the door as well as other forms, brochures and mailers.

It was a two-person shop and one was leaving — the press operator. And somehow my dad got me in to interview with Roger Fish for the job. I was 16.

Prior Experience: Watching a press run. 

I’d been, for at least two years, a hanger-on at the Middleton Times Tribune where my sister Arlene worked and had started by sweeping floors and dumping trash just to have the chance to hang around. I got to watch as pages were pasted-up, film was shot on the big process camera and plates were made for the press. I learned the ins and outs of the darkroom, developing film and making prints. And then I was the high school sports writer making 10-cents a column-inch for my writing.

But now here was the opportunity to learn to run a press. Roger talked with me and hired me. I distinctly remember this part of the conversation: “How much do you want to be paid,” Roger asked me. “I suppose $1.25 an hour. That’s minimum wage,” I responded. “I’ll pay you $1.50 an hour,” said Roger. 

The current press operator was a man probably in his 30’s. His name escapes me. He was leaving in two weeks and during that time I’d learn his job. The other man in the shop was Ken Kaufman who I’d come to know quite well over the next couple of years.

In the first few days I learned the layout of the shop and how the catalog was put together, how the plates were stored for each four-page signature in the catalog and some basics of the press. Within the first week I was at the controls of the Multilith 1850, learning to mount plates, load paper, and at the end of the shift clean the press.

(A friend of mine, Tony Kannenberg, who was decades ago hired as an apprentice press operator for a local job printer, once asked me “How long before you got to run the press?” “The first week,” I said. “I cleaned presses for a year before I got to run one,” he said.)

By the end of two weeks I was running the press and had learned how to load and run the collator and then gather and saddle-stitch the finished book.

After that a maintenance and service gentleman with Multilith seemed to turn up almost every day and helped me learn the job. I’ve often wondered how Mr. Fish pulled that one off, but it was pretty nice to have an expert show up every day and teach me just a little more.

It was a lucky break. I kept that job ’til I was 18 and, through another interesting twist of fate that I’ll save for another post here, was hired as an apprentice printer at Madison Newspapers.

Another story is that of Ken Kauffman. That one I’ll save for later too…

But in the next post let me describe that print shop at Fish Building Supply in Middleton.