The "With a Little Help from my Friends" Story

It was an ordinary day. Just took the last CD into school and made the final 4 plates needed to print the 2011 Football Program. I have been doing the football program for Manheim Township High School for the past umpteen years; probably back into the 70s. Even after I retired from teaching, I was still asked to print the programs for the team in the high school print shop. Seems with donated paper and no overhead, I can do the programs for far less that what it would cost elsewhere. Well, this year we ran into a snag. I am having trouble with a back issue and will be having surgery before the first home game. How will I ever get the programs ready on time? I was able to do all the composition on my iMac, get all the

photos scheduled and taken by my friend Andy, transfer all the files to PDF and load them

onto a few CDs and make all the necessary plates on the school's Xante platemaker. The hard part was the printing and assembly. That requires quite a bit of physical labor, which I cannot do. My son, Tad, who is a pressman for a local printing company, went to school with me and while I watched, ran a few pages on the press for me for me. I made a call to Jim who is now the teacher in my old room, asking him if he could help me get them printed. No Problem! He would finish them for me. Wow! I made a call to Mike, who works with me during the summer doing the in-house school printing, and he said he would fold, assemble and staple the programs for me. Wow!! The programs will be done on time ..... with a little help from my friends. Not sure whether it is time to give up the football program job, or if this is just a detour this year. Time will tell. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - photo above shows LDub getting IDs for the girl's tennis team while the pixs below show covers from programs of the last decade. Notice how they went from one color ideas I created and printed to four-color covers that were printed by someone else and place on the program inside I printed. The school press isn't capable of doing four-color printing.