PUBLISHED AND PERISHED

THE DEMISE OF AN OLD PRINTING PRESS KINDLES REMEMBRANCES OF TIMES PAST

Not long ago, we shut down the press at the weekly newspaper my family owned in my Iowa hometown of Greenfield (pop. 2,074). After 108 years, its glorious Wednesday-night baritone was not to be heard. No more would it summon folks to come and read how kids' crepe-paper birthdays rivaled royal cotillions, or how the class dullard shone like a bright star.

True, the newspaper lives on, and I hope it still will be rich with the fragments of life of Greenfield. But the renowned iron patriarch that stamped these small stories into history has been whisked away to oblivion. A...

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