On a recent weekday morning, 23-year-old Kadee Holmes stood atop The Dispatch’s 70-plus-years-old Goss Urbanite printing press directing a stream of black ink into one of 10 wells that deliver ink to the press’ rollers.
Dewey Petigo says he’s been “scared to death” twice in the 44 years he’s run C&P Printing. First was in 1978 when he and Paul Carpenter left secure jobs in the print shop at Besco to open their business Petigo would buy out Carpenter five or six years later.
The crew had put their kayaks in the river and were waiting. On this morning we were paddling the Sipsey River near Aliceville, Alabama, from Cotton Bridge Road to Lewiston, about 11 miles.
It is midday on a recent Sunday and Beth and I are sitting in a booth at a Vietnamese restaurant south of Louisville, Kentucky. The restaurant is in a well-worn strip mall near the airport and shares space with a nail salon a wall separates the two. There is a Marathon quick mart and gas station at one end of the building and at the other, a burger joint with a sign that proclaims, “Here everyday is a weekend.”