June Vale

The first proof of the Register was circulated with an extra line in the masthead. It gave a street address for an office we have never rented. The address was removed before publication. I am leaving the location out of this copy because the building at that number is occupied.

I have been told it was sample text. There is no sample-text file in the package I was sent. That may only mean the package is incomplete.

This page sits under my author record because corrections to the reports pass through the same queue as the reports themselves. I can still add a note here without replacing the copy that has already gone out.

If you are reading it through a byline, please remember the date printed above each entry. I did not put this in the article. The article should be allowed to stand on what we can document.

The copy desk sent three clean reports through the Tuesday queue. The second pass returned three receipts as expected, but one carried a margin count that belonged to an earlier proof. It named the correct headline and the wrong number of paragraphs. I checked the filed version before I marked it received.

Nothing in the published report appears to have changed. The count is written on a sheet kept with the proofs, not in the story itself. I have not thrown out either sheet. If I need to correct the file later, I want to know which count we were using when the report went out.

The key report returned from its second proof with a small brass key taped inside the back cover. It is not one of the keys in my photographs, and the copy desk did not add it. The tape crossed my initials where I had marked the proof clean.

The key opens the lower drawer of the Register's clipping cabinet. Our usual key still does as well. I put the additional one in an envelope with the proof receipt and asked that the cabinet not be discarded if we move the files again.

The tax-sale report came back from copy with an adult molar in the gutter between pages three and four. The root was intact. A narrow band of tissue remained wet enough to mark the margin beside the paragraph about the camera recording, although the proof envelope was dry and had not been torn.

I asked the copy desk whether anyone there had lost dental work. They treated the question as a practical one and answered no. I put the tooth in a glassine evidence fold with the proof receipt. By afternoon the tissue had dried hard to the paper, but the crown remained warm. I have not assigned it a source because I cannot establish where it was before the report was returned.

The archive report returned on the usual proof stock with a sheet of blue carbon paper behind it. We have not used carbon paper for corrections, and the copy desk says none was added there. The impression on the reverse is my report, including the headline and filing marks, except that it also carries the words 'copy retained' beneath the last paragraph.

Those words were on the card at the annex, but not in the copy I submitted. I separated the carbon from the proof and filed them in different drawers. The impression remains legible on both sheets. I am treating that as a handling question until I can establish when the carbon was placed.

The zoning report returned with its last page joined to the proof beneath it by a translucent strip along the inner margin. It was flexible and wet only on the underside. Fine branching vessels were visible when I held it to the desk lamp, and its surface carried a reversed impression of the sentence about the unsigned attendance line. The paper under it was dry and showed no adhesive.

I separated the strip with tweezers and placed it in a glassine fold with the packet receipt. It contracted around the metal clip before I closed the fold. Copy says no binding material was applied to the proof. By late afternoon the strip had become opaque and the clip's black finish was pitted where they touched. I sent a clean copy through the ordinary queue and retained the original under handling unknown.

The nature-center report returned from copy with a small accession card tucked into the proof envelope. The card is older than the county's visitor building and does not match any specimen in the surplus file. In pencil, the description line reads 'June Vale, seated at copy desk.' No photograph or object number is attached.

The handwriting is not mine, and the copy desk says the envelope was empty except for the proof when it left them. I placed the card in a separate sleeve rather than with the county material. Its reverse has four recent staple holes, although neither this proof nor the envelope was stapled.

The ledger report returned from copy with a photograph clipped behind the last page. It shows the proof laid open on my desk, photographed from above. The page is marked clean in my handwriting. I had not marked it clean when the photograph reached me; the pencil remains on the blotter in the image.

After I completed the edit, I made the same mark and left the pencil elsewhere. The page then matched the photograph except that one paper corner is visible at the lower edge, holding another image beneath the proof. I cannot identify its subject. I filed the received photograph separately and sent the clean copy through the ordinary queue.

The burial report returned from copy with a thin strip of pink tissue drawn through the upper staple hole. It followed the staple's bend between the first two pages and held several gray paper fibers in small pits along one side. The proof had not been stapled when I submitted it, and copy says it was returned with the same loose clip now in the envelope.

I cut the paper around the hole rather than pulling the strip free. Under the desk lens, the pits narrowed into points resembling follicles, though I found no hair. I placed the paper fragment and strip in a glassine fold with the proof receipt, marked the copy clean from a duplicate and left the staple out of the filed version.

The meal-site report returned from copy with a shallow circular impression through all four proof sheets. It was the size of a county dinner plate and crossed different parts of the text on each page, as if the pages had been spread separately beneath one setting. The cover board and envelope carried no mark.

I held the sheets together at their filing holes. The impressions then formed four complete circles rather than one repeated circle, each centered on a blank area beside the copy. I checked the original file before marking the duplicate clean. The sheets are stored flat in separate sleeves because stacking them makes the paper settle into the four depressions.

The deed-book report returned with a dark band along the trimmed edge of the proof, where no text had been printed. It came away on my fingertips as five complete ridge patterns, each upright and readable from the paper side rather than reversed. Three match my right hand. The other two have narrower loops and continue beneath the paper fibers where an ordinary impression would stop.

Soap removed the visible ink from my skin, but the wash water left short black filaments caught across the drain screen. They were flexible until dry and then fractured like pencil lead. I placed the screen in a glassine sleeve, marked the duplicate proof clean and kept the original flat. By afternoon, the two unfamiliar prints had darkened while mine had faded from the edge.