Steve's Garbage Truck

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Oct 29, 2015
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King's Garbage Truck with the byline Steve King was a column printed in The Maine Campus (the University of Maine newspaper) in 1969 and 1970. The Fogler Library has them on microfilm but they're not widely available otherwise except for copies people have saved or photocopied over the years.
From Wikipedia re: The Maine Campus - "After writing a few articles and essays for The Maine Campus, Steve decided to approach the editor, David Bright, about writing a weekly column. Bright gave him the go-ahead, and his first column appeared on February 20, 1969. Steve christened his column "The Garbage Truck" because, as he put it, "You never know what you're going to find in a garbage truck." From the beginning, Bright liked Steve's writing, but he wasn't overly fond of the nerve-racking style in which Steve cranked out his columns. AN hour before the deadline with no column in sight, Steve would show up at the paper's office. Bright, wringing his hands, would tell Steve how many column inches he needed to fill for that issue. Steve would then sit down at one of the big, hulking green typewriters in the newspaper office and bang out his copy, letter-perfect with no cross-outs, no corrections, no crumpled-up pieces of paper, and meet his deadline with moments to spare"
 

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Oct 29, 2015
14
73
71
From Wikipedia re: The Maine Campus - "After writing a few articles and essays for The Maine Campus, Steve decided to approach the editor, David Bright, about writing a weekly column. Bright gave him the go-ahead, and his first column appeared on February 20, 1969. Steve christened his column "The Garbage Truck" because, as he put it, "You never know what you're going to find in a garbage truck." From the beginning, Bright liked Steve's writing, but he wasn't overly fond of the nerve-racking style in which Steve cranked out his columns. AN hour before the deadline with no column in sight, Steve would show up at the paper's office. Bright, wringing his hands, would tell Steve how many column inches he needed to fill for that issue. Steve would then sit down at one of the big, hulking green typewriters in the newspaper office and bang out his copy, letter-perfect with no cross-outs, no corrections, no crumpled-up pieces of paper, and meet his deadline with moments to spare"
"...big, hulking green typewriters" kinda reminds me of the original Wang Word Processors (which, by the way, were definitely NOT 'of the Gods').
 
Oct 29, 2015
14
73
71
"...big, hulking green typewriters" kinda reminds me of the original Wang Word Processors (which, by the way, were definitely NOT 'of the Gods').

Welcome to SKMB Sloth_Next_Time

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Stephen King wrote a weekly column for the Campus in the 1970s and also published short stories such as Slade in the newspaper. According to Haunted Heart by Lisa Rogak:

After writing a few articles and essays for The Maine Campus, Steve decided to approach the editor, David Bright, about writing a weekly column. Bright gave him the go-ahead, and his first column appeared on February 20, 1969. Steve christened his column "The Garbage Truck" because, as he put it, "You never know what you're going to find in a garbage truck."

From the beginning, Bright liked Steve's writing, but he wasn't overly fond of the nerve-racking style in which Steve cranked out his columns. AN hour before the deadline with no column in sight, Steve would show up at the paper's office. Bright, wringing his hands, would tell Steve how many column inches he needed to fill for that issue.

Steve would then sit down at one of the big, hulking green typewriters in the newspaper office and bang out his copy, letter-perfect with no cross-outs, no corrections, no crumpled-up pieces of paper, and meet his deadline with moments to spare.
Neesy, sorry - I didn't know what the 'spoiler' meant on this post. I hovered over it just now and found all the info about The Maine Campus that I then proceeded to duplicate. Forgive the oversight. I'll look more closely from now on.
 
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