Stop the press

I can't believe it took me seven years of working at the Naples Daily News to go in and talk to the pressmen and watch them in action. Great guys. September 8th, they will abandon the old press at our Central Avenue location and start working on a state-of-the-art press in our new building in North Naples. We are a newspaper that is very lucky to still be investing in our print product, as well as our online product. Please go HERE to watch a video produced by me and videographer Manuel Martinez about the old press.



They are equal parts artist, scientist and engineer.

They receive no glory, little recognition and they have no byline.

Pressmen are sometimes the forgotten but without them there would be no newspaper.

“We’ve never not printed a paper since I’ve been here,” Casey Cote said confidently. “We’ve come close.”

Cote, a 29-year veteran and pressroom manager at the Naples Daily News, got his start at the Daily News when he was 20. He was working on a community press in northern New York when his mom handed him a classified ad that said “Live and work on the sunny Gulf of Mexico.”

Over the years, he and his crew of press operators have prided themselves on their teamwork and being able to set up or fix the press quickly. Cote has sometimes had to sleep in his car in the parking lot of the newspaper, one time on the night of Easter Sunday, waiting to fix what he called a “major break” in the old press.

The Goss Metro press, which Cote refers to as the “old goat,” was acquired by the Naples Daily News in 1993. It was previously owned by The Rocky Mountain News out in Denver.

It’s hard work. But it’s not all work.

“We pulled a lot of pranks when we were younger,” Cote said.

On a recent evening in a breakroom, Cote and several others laughed about experiences in the pressroom — some funny and some not-so-funny. Like when they pulled a prank on Rocco, leaving him with black ink dripping down the back of his head. Or, when Rocco was driving a clam truck carrying five, 2,000-pound rolls of paper and it tipped over sending the rolls into the catwalk of the press.

Rocco Bovenzi, pictured above, has worked on the press for 17 years.

He says you “gotta be half crazy” to work as a pressman.

“Everyone’s home in bed while we’re here doing this stuff,” said the 56-year-old former musician who sports a ponytail and loves the blues.

Long after the reporters have gone home and the page designers have shut down their computers, the pressmen are still in the thick of it.

When you’re in the pressroom, you don’t really know if it’s night or day. It is hard to determine if you’re upstairs or downstairs. It’s a world of its own where time is kept by the papers flying by on a belt.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe you do have to be a little crazy to work in there.

Or maybe you just have to love newspapers.

“My wife says ‘you got ink in your blood,’” said Barry Mundy, a pressman at the Daily News since 1998.

Mundy is a 51-year-old former Marine who started as an apprentice more than 20 years ago in New Jersey. He remembers having to bribe his way in to the pressroom up north with a six-pack of beer.

He loves the history of the press. But he’s also excited about the future.

Mundy and a handful of other pressmen are still working at the old press on Central Avenue, making sure the paper comes out everyday while the operation switches over to the Daily News’ new location on Immokalee Road.

In the next few weeks, they will say goodbye to the press that is more mechanical than technical and say hello to a state-of-the-art printing press called WIFAG Evolution 371.

In the new building, their feet won’t stick to the floor, the air will be better circulated and they may not even need earplugs. Instead of moving the machine themselves, they will tell the machine to move with the touch of a button.

Many things will be different.

Pressmen working tirelessly behind the scenes will remain the same.

Summertime ...

... and the livin is easy.

I Heart Savannah

I took my little sis to Savannah last weekend. It was a whirlwind, one-day trip. She'd never been out of Florida so we went to the coolest city nearest to the Sunshine State. Here's a few pics from 10-year-old film used in the Holga.

More Macedonia

Macedonia

I shot vacation bible school at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church yesterday. The story is about kids getting fed during bible school. This picture doesn't make the cut. So, I place it here.

Moving day

The residents of Glade Haven, a trailer park in Bonita Springs, Fla., have until midnight tonight to move out to make way for a 200-unit condominium. I went there this weekend for a daily story to see if anyone was packing up. Here are two of my favorite images.

A Living Testament

Please go HERE to watch the mini documentary I've created on three historically black churches in Naples.

I feel incredibly lucky to work at a newspaper that still gives amazing space for stories it deems important. Here is the layout for the story that ran in today's paper. Read Katy Bishop's story HERE

The devoted

Tanya pulls out a scrapbook with pictures from the past year. Smiling faces of two teenagers in love peer back from the pages. She and her boyfriend, Ramade, are hugging and smiling at Busch Gardens, King Richard’s, from photo booths and swimming pools.

Looking through, you would never know that Ramade has spent nearly half of the past 15 months in the hospital and almost died twice.

Ramade Robles, 19, or Rome to those who know him best, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in January 2008. It was one month after he and Tanya started dating.

“He gave me the option of leaving,” said Tanya Lyristakis, 20, a computer science student at Florida Gulf Coast University. “But, I asked ‘why would I do that?’ ”

Tanya has taken it in stride. The hardest time for them came in December when Rome was sent to the University of Florida Shands Cancer Center in Gainesville for acute pancreatitis, a problem caused by his chemotherapy treatment. Rome was put into an induced coma for two weeks so his body would heal.

“A nurse told me to prepare for the worst,” Tanya’s voice shakes as she remembers. Doctors told her he had a 13 percent chance of surviving. She called his family members so they could come say goodbye.

It has been a tough road. But, in many ways, not as difficult as the road he walked before being diagnosed.

Rome is the youngest of seven but has been in and out of foster care, sold drugs on the streets in Tampa at age 16, has been arrested on more than one occasion and has little family support.

Before being diagnosed, he was cleaning up his life. He landed a job at UPS, where he met Tanya.

For Rome, the physical pain he has gone through since his diagnosis is more manageable than his lifetime of emotional pain.

But the past is not what concerns them now.

Rome started attending a weekly support group on Wednesdays at Cancer Alliance of Naples. Tanya goes with him.

“It helps to know there are other people out there who have an understanding,” Rome said. Talking to people who are going through similar experiences makes him feel normal.

“He’s given hope and helped others to feel they are not alone, and they’ve done the same for him,” said Ellen Harris, a licensed mental health counselor who facilitates the support group every week. “We are all amazed at his ability to have an upbeat attitude about life despite all the things he’s been through at a very early age.”

Harris said the devotion Rome and Tanya have for each other has been an inspiration to the group.

That devotion is what keeps Rome moving forward through his illness.

“I count my blessings that I can walk, hear, see and taste normally,” he said. “And of course, I’m lucky to have you,” he adds looking over at Tanya in their East Naples living room.

“I would have died if I didn’t have her.”

The Cobbler

To watch the video please click HERE




He’s like an old shoe. A little worn-in, but reliable, nonetheless.

Everyday his attire is the same — a black T-shirt, some variation of slacks and tennis shoes.

“My grandkids, when they were small, they thought this was my skin” said Silvio Palomba about his t-shirt. His blue eyes shine behind wire frame glasses. His salt-and-pepper mustache turns up in a smile as he laughs about his appearance. He throws his hands in the air in a way that says “eh, whatever.”

He could use a little polish. But, he saves it for the shoes.

Bells chime and a customer walks through the door of Silvio’s Shoe Repair on Ninth Street in Naples. It’s a sound Silvio has heard six-days-a-week since he opened the store 1980.

“I was a plumber in Italy,” Silvio, 62, said in an Italian accent he has retained despite living in the states more than 40 years. “So when I come to this country, my father-in-law (a cobbler in Boston) made the offer, ‘you come work for me I pay you 60 bucks a week.’ ”

He got a $20 raise every time he and his wife had a child. They had three.

Now, his grandson T.J. Palomba, 15, walks around his grandfather’s store to help every Saturday.

“He’s gonna be the next cobbler in town,” said Silvio, hoping to spark some interest in T.J. about the family business. But, he knows right now T.J. is probably more interested in video games.

”I’ve been coming here forever,” said T.J. “I grew up in the store. I know how all the bags and boxes and shoes are in order.”

An untrained eye may disagree that anything in Silvio’s storefront is in “order.” In fact, it looks a bit like chaos. Rows of boxes on top of boxes. Shoes stacked with yellow tags waiting to be returned to their owners.

Customers don’t seem to mind the lived-in feel of the store. A steady stream come in and out on a recent Saturday to drop off and retrieve shoes. Silvio prides himself on being able to alter shoes for a custom fit.

“He is amazing,” said Debra Newman who works at Marissa Collections on Third Street South in Naples. “If he can’t fix it, it can’t be done.”

But, shoes aren’t his sole business anymore.

Purses, belts, luggage — Silvio repairs it all. Over the years, he has had to take on these extra items to secure business.

Forty years ago he saw for the first time a shoe made with a plastic sole instead of leather. He and his father-in-law didn’t know at the time what they were dealing with. “We took them in, thinking it was like rubber and the glue wouldn’t stick on them.”

Today, he says, you can buy a shoe for less than you can repair it. “That is what ruined this industry,” Silvio said. “But, you can’t blame anybody, it’s progress.”

Anticipation

My favorite part of the homecoming was the waiting. Monique Miles and her husband Alex Calvert came home for a two week leave from Iraq. I loved watching her family as they tried to spot them in the crowd.

Over and out

Dedication

The name on the cross says Lee Bumrok. His age has been worn thin. I didn’t know anything about him accept that he was a casualty of war.

But, with a simple internet search he came alive.

I saw his face and read his story.

His name is actually Bumrok Lee. He moved to the United States with his family from South Korea when he was 4 years old. He grew up in Cupertino, just outside of San Jose, Calif. He died at age 21 on June 2, 2004 after suffering injuries from a car-bomb in Iraq while serving as a corporal in the U.S. Marines Corps.

I found out that he was raised mostly by his sister, Elis, while both of his parents worked full time and that he joined the service so he could later go to college and help support his family. He and his girlfriend, who he had known since junior high, joined the military at the same time.

An article on SFGate.com tells that his girlfriend, Sakura Dao Pham, was an Army Reserve medic in Baghdad at the time of his death. After being wounded on May 29, 2004, he was sent to her hospital, but she wasn’t on duty. She didn’t find out he was there until four days later, after he died.

Her blog reads:

“It hurt so bad to find out you were critically injured and stayed in intensive care for four days at the 31st CSH. Everyday I visit and take care of other wounded soldiers, but I never would have thought that I would not be able to do that for you. How can God not let me see you and take care of you for the last time? But in my heart I know you wished for me not to see you hurt like that.”

He is one of more than 4,000 military men and women who have died in the war in Iraq. On the day I photographed his cross, I was focusing on the hand pulling flowers from the ground and the vast number of crosses on display in Arlington South last month on Naples Beach.

Lee has connected people in his death. Message boards dedicated to him are full of notes from people with shared experience and loss.

He ended up on Naples beach. And now, he is connected to me and to you. No longer anonymous in a sea of names.

Nina

I haven't posted very regularly lately. Frankly, I feel like I'm in a bit of a slump with my daily work. That said, I am working on something that I care about that has taken up a lot of my time and hopefully is starting to take shape. So, stay tuned for that. In the meantime, I introduce you to Nina, my little sister from Big Brothers Big Sisters. We've been together for two years and I think she's awesome. She knows how to be herself. I keep telling her that puts her light years ahead of most people her own age. I dyed her hair blue yesterday (she dyed a little of mine too, but she pulls it off better). We did a quick photo shoot in my living room.

Sleepy time

Remember when nap time used to be scheduled in to our day? We didn't know how good we had it.

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