The "Are you ready for some Football ..... programs?" Story

It was an ordinary day. AT LAST! The football programs had just been delivered. And I made it with six hours to spare. Every year for the past twenty plus years I have been printing the football programs for Manheim Township High School. This year's edition was needed for tonight's game which starts at 7:00 PM. Always tough to do when the first game is a home game. There were 80 pages in the program this year. Advertisers were fewer because of the economy, but the fan pages made upthe difference. I started on the program about a month ago getting the ads together and deciding what to put on each page. Some pages have been the same for years. The first page is always a letter from the high school principal and the district superintendent. Page includes the alma mater and the words to the school fight song. You know, I was a student at this school in the late 50s and early 60s and still don't remember hearing a fight song! I made a few calls to see if I could get a donation of paper for the program. It is a real commitment for any printer to donate 20,000 pieces of 11"x17" paper. This year I went right to the distributor and was able to get the paper from Lindemyer Paper Company. Even dropped it off at the school for me. Great people, they are! We can't take the team photos until about a week before the first game, since the teams haven't been selected until then. This makes for some long days and nights at the print shop at MT. The covers are printed by Intel Printing Company in Lancaster, since the school doesn't have a four-color press and the program looks more professional with a full cover cover. Picked up the cover late Tuesday afternoon. Since I do all the printing of the 19 inside pages of the program in the graphic arts room in the high school, I must wait until the school day is over to get into the shop to work. Negatives need to be made, stripping needs to be done, plates need to be burnt, and the presswork has to be completed. Finished all this by Wednesday evening. Thursday I was in early trying to find a space to set up the folding machine. Used the concession stand by the indoor arena and spend the AM folding the 20,000 pieces of printed paper. Then, loaded it in my Mazda and headed home to collate it. I had to estimate how much weight the paper and myself totaled to make sure my car could hold it in one trip. Springs got a good workout that day. Next I had to set up an assemble line on my kitchen counter to collate the pages. This job takes hours. Finished by late Thursday evening. My first 12 hour plus day on the job. Hands are starting to feel the strain of the manual labor. Up early this morning to head back to school with the assembled programs for stapling. I only needed 250 programs for the first game so the stapling only takes about an hour, then back home again to trim the edges of the program. By noon I was loading the programs back in the car for the trip to the high school one more time. My day is now ORDINARY! But, with four more home games in the coming weeks, I have to collate, staple, and trim four more times before the season is complete. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.