This is my second attempt at maintaining transparency on problems we run into at The News-Banner.
A few weeks ago I wrote a column that attempted to explain why we missed a day of delivery. The machine that makes our plates decided to stop making plates.
In the early morning hours on Tuesday, July 16, the plate maker stopped working. Fortunately, we were nearly done with the press run and were able to hit our deadline with all of the Post Offices.
For the Wednesday, July 17, edition we were able to get plates from the Portland Commercial Review while we waited for our machine to be repaired. One of the plates flew off the press and we didn’t have time to get a replacement. That day, we missed our deadlines with the Post Offices so no newspapers were delivered.
My column on July 19 detailed that day in the office with the hundreds of calls we received. Again, thank you for your patience. At the end of that submission I noted that the machine had been repaired and “The world is right again. At least for now. I’m not one to be overconfident.”
I wasn’t overconfident but I am superstitious. It comes from my younger days playing baseball. Baseball players are notoriously superstitious. If you’re on a hitting streak, you don’t change anything. You don’t wash your uniform. You don’t change your socks (or other apparel). You eat the same food. Most importantly, you don’t talk about the streak.
Superstitions aren’t reasonable.
On Friday, July 19, my words came back to haunt me. “The world is right again.”
That morning at 2 a.m. my phone rang. The plate maker stopped working again, even though we ran some plates as a test on Thursday afternoon.
There was nothing worse than having to call our friends in Portland — again — and drag them out of bed at 2:30 in the morning when they were finally planning to get a full night’s rest.
We didn’t make all of our deadlines that day, but we did make our largest drop at the Bluffton Post Office — with three minutes to spare. I was incredibly proud of our team for the little victory.
Monday afternoon the repair person was back. The part that had been replaced earlier obviously hadn’t solved the problem. Not wanting to mess around, they replaced half of the machine and had us up and running by 9 p.m. A few hours later we printed Tuesday’s newspaper without any issue.
At that time I was also filling in for Mark Miller and was building this page for a few days. One of his suggestions for Tuesday’s opinion page included “… maybe you’ll have an update on the platemaker :).” The superstitious voice in my head refused. I had written an update a few days earlier and it backfired. I wasn’t going through that again.
Fast forward to yesterday, when I wrote this piece, the machine has been working. My PTSD wouldn’t allow me to even think about those horrible days. I’m not fully over the trauma, PTSD doesn’t work like that, but I’m recovered enough to tell the rest of the story.
If the plate maker stops working again today you will never hear from me again.
Superstition rules wouldn’t allow it.
dougb@news-banner.com
