Thursday, July 12, 2012

Manual, back-breaking part of the job had its own rewards


Wednesday mornings were devoted to hand-labeling, bundling and inserting that week's issue. Nicola and I would drive together to the printer's in Homedale, about an hour away. The copies of that week's issue would be sitting there waiting for us in one big pile on a pallet.
The Wednesday morning ritual was tedious and tiring but also rewarding — in the beginning. It was definitely manual labor, so it made us feel like we were really working hard at this newspaper thing, not just sitting in front of a computer. It was also gratifying in that we were doing everything ourselves, even the back-breaking part. If we could have operated the press just for our paper, we probably would have wanted to do that, too.
The other thing about the labeling, even to the very end, was that it gave us a chance to look at all of the names of the people who subscribed. Even in the beginning, at 900 to 1,000 subscribers, it was a heck of a lot of names. Toward the end, when we got up to 2,400 subscribers, it made us realize just how many people we reached. It was always a gratifying experience to do the labels.

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