Chapter 4: The Paragonians

“How’s the program coming, Jim?”

Jim Owens, in his first year as an apprentice typesetter at Salt Lake’s Paragon Printing Press, carefully adds the final strokes to the new Linotype machine’s keyboard; the machine promptly spits out a fresh line o’ type. “All done, Mr. Bentine sir, have a look.”

Master Printer George Bentine drops the type metal slug into the wooden tray as the final puzzle piece and holds it up for scrutiny, his eye trained to read mirror images.

“Well?”

“Latter-day Saints College Commencement Exercises,” Bentine mumbles. He squints a bit and drops his voice to a whisper as he reads the subscript announcing the event’s place and time: “Tabernacle, Friday Evening, June First, Nineteen Hundred Twenty-eight, Eight o’clock.”

“All set?”

“It will pass,” grumbles Bentine, “Run the whole batch!”

Jim resets the barrel’s counter to zero and starts turning the crank. The scent of fresh ink percolates through his jacket and soaks into his skin, but he is long since immune to print shop smells.

Each of the thousand copies needs a tri-fold, and Bentine’s fleet hands dig into the process before the ink even has a chance to dry.

Jim’s worn-out arm cranks away for almost an hour, with no reprieve from Bentine, who splits the stack in two the instant the last program rolls off the press.

“Finger!” barks Bentine as he wraps twine around the bundles.

Jim holds the twine in place with his finger while Bentine secures the knots. “Ouch!” he cries as his finger is inevitably caught in the impatiently tightening noose.

“Go, go, go!” shouts Bentine, pushing Jim out the door with a bundle under each arm. Bentine nervously squints at the clock on the far wall: Five o’ clock. He wants to be sure the programs are in place before the early birds arrive for this evening’s commencement. He has good reason to be nervous. Just down the street, Deseret Book Company’s business is expanding at an alarming rate. Paragon just barely managed to underbid Deseret to print this year’s annual for L.D.S. High. The yearbook job was a tall order for a small shop and they had run behind schedule, barely getting the printed pages to the bindery in time for tonight’s distribution.

Now, after running twelve hundred yearbooks, the big press is getting an overhaul; printing the commencement programs is a nice little side job to keep some income rolling in while the big press is out of commission. Bentine can’t afford to lose any ground; running a full-page advertisement for Deseret in the yearbook was a hard enough swallow for him, but a late delivery might make Miss Madelyne Stewart, a strict young English teacher and the school’s director of publications, doubt her decision to go with Paragon.

“Not while Bentine is running the show,” he shouts confidently as he pats one of the presses in his captive audience. He walks out to the street corner, his eyes trailing Jim as added security.

Jim is a bit winded after sprinting the two and a half city blocks from Paragon to Temple Square. He slows to a brisk walk as he passes inconspicuously through the West Gate behind the Tabernacle, and then nonchalantly places the stacks on two specially prepared tables outside the main Tabernacle doors. He pulls his knife out of his pocket and cuts the strings loose. A few of the programs at the top start to flutter in the light breeze, and he scans the grounds for a solution. Two rounded stones from beneath the rose bush ought to do the trick; he bends down to dig them out.

“Well, Mr. Owens, how do you do?”

Jim quickly spins around, brushing the dirt off his new paperweights. “No worries, Miss Stewart, we’ve got your order right here.”

“Wonderful!” she replies, “It looks like Bentine made good on both of his promises today. The annuals arrived from the bindery just a few minutes ago.” Miss Stewart has her own, much larger table set aside for the Saints’ “S” Book distribution. “Now will you be a dear and help me with these boxes?” she asks persuasively.

Jim helps her heave six cases of the three-hundred-page yearbooks up onto the table, producing quite a sag in the middle. Miss Stewart stacks the books into neat piles for distribution and pulls out a checklist of paid-up seniors. The underclassmen will receive their books another time; this is the seniors’ day.

“What about these over here,” Jim asks, eying a separate, unopened box.

“Oh good, I was afraid the fancy ones wouldn’t arrive in time,” exclaims Miss Stewart, pulling out a second check list of seniors who had paid a hefty surcharge to have their names embossed in gold on the cover.

Jim opens the box and picks up a yearbook, unwittingly leaving inky fingerprints on the crisp pages as he thumbs through it. All the school year’s activities are included through the previous week, but unfortunately tonight’s ceremonies aren’t immortalized in print – a deliberate choice Miss Stewart made in order to give the seniors a chance to sign each other’s books before they disseminate across the country, pursuing whatever lies on the exciting road ahead.

In verifying her numbers, Miss Stewart wonders if she has miscounted; she reads the purchase order on the box aloud several times over, “Salt Lake Engraving Company, 30 pieces,” checking each of the covers against her list. They are all accounted for; she’s puzzled until she sees Jim with one of the engraved books in hand.

“Give me that!” she says bluntly, realizing simultaneously whose book Jim is holding and how dirty his hands are. She places the yearbook by itself on the table.

“So sorry…” Jim says shyly. With a line of students beginning to form around the table, Jim has begun to feel a bit out of place and excuses himself for the evening. His exit march through the gate is slowed by throngs of arriving graduates filing in to the grounds with their families.

“Thanks again, Mr. Owens,” Miss Stewart calls from behind her table, feeling badly for having been so short with him, “and be sure to thank Mr. Bentine as well.” Her words are muffled by the roar of the excited crowd, and Jim has trouble understanding her.

“Should have finished school…” he says under his breath, the complaint triggered by a sense of envy for younger, carefree days, and cemented by the thought of spending his Friday night under Bentine’s watchful eye cleaning up the mess he left at Paragon. His downward glances contrast starkly with the upbeat optimism in the eyes of the entering graduates.

Salt Lake is in the midst of the so-called “Roaring Twenties.” If you ask Jim, the twenties haven’t quite hit the din of a roar in Utah – the local scene seems more like a purr – but nonetheless, in the eyes of the students, it is a fantastic time to be graduating. Life in Salt Lake City is more metropolitan than ever; Utah is finally on the map for all new reasons, having just begun to grow from the shadows of its polygamous past. Rather than mobilizing troops against the territory, the President’s agenda now includes actively courting the people of Utah; after parading through downtown Salt Lake City with his transcontinental motorcade just five years before, for instance, President Harding himself had toured Temple Square and addressed the nation from the city’s beloved Tabernacle.

Miss Stewart recalls the excitement of that presidential night – shortly after her own graduation from the L.D.S. – and can’t help but be thrilled for tonight’s crowd as well. The Temple Square grounds fill with gathering groups of graduates, and she hands out one leather-bound volume after another until only a handful of books remain on the table. She taps her fingers on the table while waiting for the latecomers, reciting poetry to herself to pass the time.

“Mind snapping a photograph for us?” asks one particularly striking young lady, surrounded by a group of young men whose burly figures fill out their graduation robes.

“Sure Betty, not a problem,” Miss Stewart responds. “Looks like you’ve got the whole defensive line with you,” she adds with a wink, “Maybe if you wait a few minutes, you’ll get the rest of the team to join you in the picture as well!”

“No, go right ahead and snap the photograph,” Betty replies with a laugh, “we don’t need the offensive line here too – these boys are offensive enough for me.” She pauses to gage Miss Stewart’s reaction. “Now how’s that for using a homonym on the spot?”

“That’s actually a heteronym, but still very good, Betty. Looks like your English lessons sank in after all.”

“And I’m glad to see that you finally took my advice and cut your hair short like mine!” Betty exclaims with a grin, “I’ll bet Hal really likes it.”

Miss Stewart nods shyly at the mention of her boyfriend. Betty opens the case of her new Kodak Vanity camera – an enviable graduation gift that comes complete with a lipstick holder and mirror – and hands it to Miss Stewart.

“Now everyone look here!” says Miss Stewart, raising the camera and focusing it on Betty, who – in her usual fashion – strikes a pose at the center of attention.

One young man in particular keeps a jealous watch over Betty “the Beauty” Callister as she poses with the athletes. Jerry Jones, the senior class president, is quite a popular fellow; but athletic he most definitely is not, and he watches one of the athletes, Rex McKean, with a searingly scornful eye. Rex is nicknamed “the King” not just because of his first name, but because as the student body president, last year’s valedictorian, and the star of the football team, he bears the triple crown as the head of the pack in popularity, scholarship, and athleticism.

Although Jerry can compete adequately in the traits of popularity and scholarship, his own accomplishments in singing and acting fall short of Rex’s record on the football field. Jerry is afraid Rex’s brawn might be the trump card in an imaginary, alpha-male battle for Betty’s heart. Even worse, Betty has served as Rex’s vice president this year, and – though the idea that he is Jerry’s nemesis hasn’t yet crossed Rex’s mind yet – Jerry constantly fears that this “business” relationship has developed into something more. The triangle is as timeless as love itself.

Jerry’s suspicious eyes dart back and forth between Betty and Rex while Miss Stewart fumbles with the camera in a struggle to capture the moment. Though the sun is behind her and low in the sky, she has to hold one hand up to block a gleam of reflected light as she finally snaps the photograph. The cranes on the horizon are setting an accelerating pace for the new, boom economy, but Moroni still manages to glint starkly in the sinking sunlight.

The flagpole atop the Hotel Utah’s dome had captured the high ground from Moroni while tonight’s graduates were still very young; not quite ready to cede defeat to the encroaching skyline, however, Moroni’s trumpet still manages to lead the charge as the shadows of the temple spires spring over the east wall and make their way across the deserted L.D.S. College campus.

~~~~~~~~

Overlooking them all is the State Capitol Building – also built within the students’ lifetime. Its halls are likewise deserted as local legislators make their way down the hill to Temple Square. As City Hall’s distant clock tower chimes six, everybody who is anybody in the Salt Lake Valley – be it in politics, religion, or business – joins the throng toward the Tabernacle.

~~~~~~~~

Chapters:

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |