Gray Matters by Stuart Carlson and Jerry Resler for March 16, 2014

Annie will google mimeograph when she’s alone.

I still remember the smell as a student! My favorite thing was smelling the paper when they were being passed out and still a little damp! (Could explain a lot)

that smell is one that you never ever forget. I think about the purple test papers, still damp from the machine and I can smell it in my memory.

Who knew we were “huffers” ???….and yes it does explain a lot.

“Ditto?”

Very good Emily!

ditto machine copies were the ones we all liked to smell as we passed the test paper back. Dittos produce purply-blue images.___On the other side was the mimeograph machine, which was like a small printing press. It used ink. If you were incredibly patient, you could produce b&w copies with spot color images

I still have some mimeograph copies of songs from my HS german classes.

Besides observing that I’m not the only one who enjoyed the aroma of mimeographed copies, I also can’t help noticing that Annie actually sounds awed rather than snide. It’s more typical for kids (at least as depicted in the comics) to make wisecracks about their elders (e.g., “They had electricity then?”).