When I first saw this story I sat down and hand-copied it and saved
that copy for many years until I got a mimeograph machine. Then I
typed up a stencil and made several dozens of copies and handed them
out.
At that time I was working as an electronics technician for the
University of Michigan at the Willow Run Research Center. I helped
construct the MIDAC, MIchigan Digital Automatic Computer, which was one
of the first large main-frame computers. I was there in 1951 and 1952
and the first half of 1953, so it would have been during that time that
the 'Load of Bricks Story', as I knew it then, was current.
Hal Davis
[ My retired newspaper-writer friend recalls seeing the story on
[ the news-wires in that era, too. He feels that the humor first
[ appeared much earlier, perhaps in the 1920s, and says it's
[ "a delightful chestnut to be warmed-over again and again."
[ -- Robbie
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