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.

Still going

A15.

That was the last page of The Herald-Mail that I laid out that will be printed at the Frederick News-Post.

Our company has found it cheaper and more flexible for us to print our newspaper in Mechanicsburg, Pa., on the presses of the Patriot-News. The press here in Hagerstown was removed a few years ago, a casualty of expensive repairs and too few parts.

I've witnessed newspaper transitions before. I've watched computer systems evolve... and devolve. I've watched printing presses stop printing forever. I've watched entire jobs be outsourced and centralized.

You'd think I'd be used to it.

In some sense, I am. The new deadlines brought on by the switch — they're a lot earlier — have caused me some consternation, but not the gut-churning borne by others in the newsroom.

Our publisher has said that the reader knows we, as a printed product, must "close the gate" once every 24 hours. We'll just be closing the gate earlier. The content will be in the paper, just on a different cycle, he said.

He's right.

Sure, people can visit our website, but not everyone does, particularly the older generation. And we're the only game in town when it comes to detailed stories about the happenings in Washington County, Md., and beyond. Television will parachute in, and even then, they'll only gloss over the story.

In other words, our product still has value to a significant group of customers.

But here's why I am feeling a little uneasy. It's not because of the here-and-now of this printing change. It's because of the dramatic shifts I've seen in the industry since I started 15 years ago.

It seems as though things have accelerated faster in the news business over that decade and a half than they had in the previous 30 years combined.

The Internet, social media, smart phones and tablets have led to the "digital first" philosophy. More news outlets will follow that path as their print readers shift their habits — or die.

I wish I could say that A15 had some ground-breaking story or really cool layout on it, to help mark the last time I put a page into the FTP program (called CyberDuck, by the way).

But it didn't.

Probably 80 percent of the page was advertising, leaving me enough room to run the weekly best-sellers list, printed Thursdays in Publishers Weekly, and an Associated Press story about how one of the Fiats used by Pope Francis on his visit to Philadelphia was sold at auction for $82,000 (the money benefited various Catholic charities).

Then again, books and the Catholic Church have had to weather many storms over the decades and centuries, even as the times have changed.

And they're still going.