Look out for Murphy—he’s at it again ~ August 7, 1986

David Heiller

Last Tuesday was Murphy’s birthday. You know Murphy, of Murphy’s Law fame. He celebrates his birthday every few weeks here at American Publishing.

Two months ago, he had a grand birthday celebration in our basement. The sky darkened like dusk, and an inch of rain fell in half an hour. Murphy was sitting in the drainpipe to the rear of the building, so that the rain water couldn’t go through. It flowed over the rear door sill, and into the basement, where we have $12,000 worth of paper stored. It pooled up under the presses, formed lakes over the drain.

Tuesday was layout day for the paper. It was a long jigsaw puzzle. All done by hand. Unless of course Murphy was around for the day, then all bets were off!

I took off my shoes and shirt, and dug into the ground outside, while the rain soaked me. I found a broken tile of clay drain pipe, where Murphy had been dancing. After an hour, the water finally started flowing through, the lake in the basement receded, and Murphy with it. But he got one final word in. I was standing on the wet cement floor with bare feet and reached up to shut off the overhead light with its pull chain. A shock of electricity jolted me. That was Murphy’s goodbye.

Murphy visits places like the American on their busiest day. The newspaper is put to bed on Tuesday. Most everybody stops their other work here for a day to get the paper out. The phone doesn’t stop ringing. People bring news in. Stories get typeset, ads get designed, pages get laid out. Columns get written. Deadlines get met, just as they have since the first American was printed 72 years ago.

It’s the kind of atmosphere Murphy thrives on, like during that flood two months ago.

This was the front of the
Askov American. David's sister
Jeanne came for a visit, luckily
Murphy took a little time off for that!

Tuesday of this week, Murphy struck again. He rode a bolt of lightning down to the roof of the American, blasting away a foot of the chimney, sending bricks all over. Then he slipped over and knocked our three-phase power out, so that our presses and typesetting machines wouldn’t run. He also knocked out our phone system, and burned up the electric meter. On his way out of town, he stopped to visit Misi DeRungs, convincing her to have her baby, meaning that her mother, Mary Meier, would have to abandon her typesetting job here to be with her daughter.

Things are back to normal now, at 11:15 Tuesday morning. We are behind schedule, but maybe that’s all Murphy wanted for his birthday present today. The power is back on, we have a substitute typesetter, one phone line even works. The paper will get put to bed on time, although a little past its normal bedtime tonight.

Still, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Murphy knows that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong, and at the worst possible time. He always has the last word.