Dad

David Edward Deinlein
1951-2019

Once, Dad was speaking to a family member at some gathering and said he was proud of me. I happened to overhear.

He was talking about my job as a reporter in Hanover, Pa. He noted that while he wished I'd gone into a line of work that might have provided a more comfortable salary, he said he realized that what I was doing meant something as he began to see my byline atop stories on the paper's website, or when I'd bring down editions on visits home to Kingsville, Md.

Though his views on my profession weren't always positive, he knew that I liked what I was doing and was glad that I felt I was making a difference in this world.

And so, it's fitting perhaps that the last time I spoke to him was Oct. 2, 2019, from the old pressroom of my newspaper, of which I had become the managing editor not long before. It's the old pressroom because the printing press was dismantled and sold a decade earlier. The space is now an event venue, with hints at the deadlines and spilled ink covered with faux wood flooring and flat gray paint.

It was just after noon when I called him in his hospital room. He was there for treatment after his second heart attack in 18 months. Though his voice was weak, he seemed in good spirits. He joked about the nurses not letting him have potato chips.

I told him about work — an industry under pressure from all sides. I bragged about my daughters, how smart they were for their ages and how talented they were in art. I could hear a smile in his voice.

On that Wednesday afternoon, I told him that I'd be down to see him on Friday. I'd already spoken with Mom earlier and made the plan. With work and other obligations, it would be easier that day.

As we were hanging up, my finger poised above the red button of my iPhone, I thought I should say, "Hey, Dad, I love you." But it was too late. My thumb was already on the screen, and I'm pretty sure Dad had put his receiver down, too. He died two hours later.

Dad circa 2010, feeling no pain
at a family wedding.

To be fair, we rarely expressed love to each other. When I was a teenager, attending a high-school retreat, he wrote me a letter at the behest of the retreat organizers. He and my mom were asked to express how they felt about me. He noted that our heritage is Czech, German and English — three nationalities not exactly known for their warmth.

But he said that he tried to show his love and pride by providing me opportunities. I went to Catholic grade school, high school and college. I was taken to historic sites in and around my hometown of Baltimore. We had a computer and printer, and I had a car when I was 16, albeit one that had seen happier times. I was able to attend summer enrichment programs at local colleges while in grade school, and went to a young journalist confab in D.C. when I was in high school. All the while, he often worked 12-hour days or longer in an industry also known for being under pressure.

Now, looking back at that last moment I spoke to him, wishing I'd been able to say, "I love you," I hope he knew.

My brothers, my father and I on my wedding day.

I hope he knew I was proud of him and that I appreciated him working himself to death for me, my brothers and our mother. I hope he knew that his love for me was embodied in my being able to do something I enjoyed and that I thought made a difference in this world.

Even though I'm a writer by trade, I couldn't bring myself to put into words the thoughts that have been swirling since October. 

So on this, my first Father's Day without him, I want it known that I loved him, was proud of him, and hope I can be half the father he was.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Amen.

Love and...

I found out Wayne had died while on deadline.

I had just finished proofing my last page and was waiting for the copy editor to make the corrections and drop it into the system for final approval when I pulled up Facebook.

An old friend and former boss, Carl Whitehill, had posted a link to Wayne Kindness's obituary with the words, "Sad news ... good memories at The Evening Sun."

I felt my stomach drop.

"OH NO," I typed before clicking on the link.

The 69-year-old had been battling health problems since I met him in May 2001. He'd been in and out of the hospital several times over the past year, as he noted in his Facebook postings. So I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise.

Still, I couldn't help but feel shocked.

He was the assistant city editor at The Evening Sun in Hanover, Pa., for many years. Before that, he'd been a reporter, photographer and copy editor, and even run his own dirt-track racing publication.

He was a good guy and a good journalist.

He had a police scanner by his side at the desk — bringing in his own, not relying on the two already squawking in the newsroom.

After our 9 a.m. deadline (before his hip surgery) he'd bring a honeybun or bear claw or other sweet pastry back from the break room vending machine before setting to work on the next day's ROP pages.

But perhaps the thing I'll remember most about him was the way he told people how to spell his last name.

"Wayne Kindness. Just like 'love and....'"

Rest easy, big guy.

How a crappy computer program and New Kids On The Block changed my life

If you've ever met me in person, you likely have heard the story I'm about to tell.

But I realized today, as Jennifer and I mark four years of marriage, I've never actually written it down.

Picture it: Hanover, Pa., March 2009.

President Barack Obama had been in office just over two months. Mount Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska, began erupting after a prolonged period of unrest. A young Jimmy Fallon took over for Conan O'Brien on NBC's "Late Night."

And I was uncertain about my future, both professionally and personally.

Less than three months earlier, about a third of the editorial staff of The Evening Sun was laid off as part of cost-cutting by then-parent company MediaNews Group. The mother ship decided to consolidate the majority of the copy desk functions at the main office, 18 miles away in the York, Pa., suburbs.

That included my job as news editor. I laid out Page A1, the jump pages and other things.

Because I had some longevity, then-Evening Sun Editor Marc Charisse managed to keep me employed, but I was essentially demoted, returning to reporting on the municipal beat.

In the transition, there were some technological kinks that needed to be worked out. Namely, The Evening Sun was operating on Mac OSX computers using the top-notch Adobe InDesign layout program that we'd just purchased nay a year before.

The York Newspaper Co., which oversees the operations of the York Daily Record/Sunday News, operated on PCs that dated to Bill Clinton's first term and used a layout program called Harris. It was created in the mid-1990s by what many believe to be a group of drunken sixth-graders.

But, since The Evening Sun was the red-headed stepchild of MediaNews' Pennsylvania cluster of papers, it was required to devolve its computing ways to match its antiquated bigger sibling.

To teach the remaining Evening Sun staffers how to use this piece of junk, the Daily Record sent over then-Day Metro Editor Amy Gulli.

Flash back a few weeks earlier, and Amy was attending a New Kids On The Block reunion tour stop in Hershey with one of her best friends from college. This friend, one Jennifer Lynn Botchie, told Mrs. Gulli over dinner before the concert that, after some difficult relationship issues in the past, she might be ready to try love again.

Flash forward to The Evening Sun newsroom, where, after a crash course in drunken sixth-grade computer coding, Amy, my pal James and I decide to take a break.

During that break, I begin to lament my love life. Earlier in the day, I'd received a phone call from a girl that I had met through ... sigh ... an online dating site. We were to go on a date that weekend, but she canceled because she had met someone else and didn't want to ruin things.

I talk about my life to Amy (James already knew most of it), mentioning off-handedly that I'm a Baltimore sports fan, Catholic and still had a passion for journalism, even though the institution had beaten me down.

Gulli smiles at me.

"So you are a football fan?" she asks me.

"Yeah," I say.

"Would you be interested in a girl who is a Cowboys fan, but also cousins with Vince Lombardi?"

"Uh, ok, that's cool."

"And you're Catholic?"

"Well, I do have 16 years of Catholic schooling."

She smiles wider.

"I might have someone for you," she says. "She's a good Catholic girl who is a former cheerleader and former sports editor."

My curiosity is piqued.

A few days later, after some pestering, Amy suggested Jen and I be "friends" on Facebook. That led to posts and messages over several weeks and a first date, at the Blue Parrot Bistro in Gettysburg, on April 10 — Good Friday.

History was made.

A year to that day, I asked her to marry me.

Two years, two months and 15 days after that first date, we got married. (Amy was the matron of honor, listed in the program as "The Matchmaker.")

And three years and 12 days after our meeting, Sophie Marie was born.

Through job changes and new residences, we've snuggled and struggled and laughed and cried.

Meanwhile, we've managed to not only not kill each other, but grow as individuals and as a couple.

At least, I like to think so.

And, to think: If it weren't for a crappy computer system and New Kids On The Block, we never would have met.

Happy anniversary, Jenny.

I love you.

Or, as Sophie would say, I ee ee!