John Lennon signing an autograph for the man who would eventually kill him, Mark David Chapman.I was a Senior in high school and I was picking up the bulk for the Dutchess County News Tribune. It was a frozen, clear dawn with no birds in the trees or sky, quiet and moon bright. I fired up the Ford, scraped off the morning ice and dropped by Margaret Hamilton’s office in Millbrook to grab the last paste-up tube for this week’s edition. With little time to make press I sped East towards Gaylordsville easily doing 80 mph and then South down Connecticut’s route 7 past the Nestle soup factory across the bridge and down into New Milford. I parked the Ford ran into the control office and placed the tubes down in front of Fred, the wall-eyed passive aggressive press operator. Fred looked tired this morning and was unusually quiet. I was 15 minutes late so I didn’t bother to say anything that I would later regret. After coffee Fred was usually a cool customer but today he was irritated and he didn’t like giving his press much down time or was particularly interested in nowhere excuses. The press was his baby and it was the size and sound of two passenger locomotives anchored to a building feeding giant paper manifolds the size of a city block. It was easily the biggest machine I had ever seen in my 18 years. Fred was the lead operator and he was older than us back home, maybe 24. He was serious like a captain and had pictures of his kid all over the safety wall. Fred had black hair with huge hands that smelled of rich magnetic ink. It was everywhere in colored barrels and it covered his jumper. If you didn’t know him he could be difficult and you had to “pick an eye” when speaking directly to him, he was use to people’s embarrassment that way and found it amusing. I thought to myself, “I don’t know why I am late” so I walked down the printing press block turned left onto Bank Street and up the hill towards the music store. It was never open at five but it was part of my routine to kill time each morning after I dropped off the art. Once a week I’d peer through the grating and lust for the new instruments on sale, “Fender” and “Gibson”. I had to be back in an hour to load the bulk and carry the news home to Dutchess County…
