Newspapers had a charm all of their own

Watching “The Post,” on DVD, which I purchased from Amazon a few days ago, I was returned to my early days in newspapering. Newspapers have been at the center of my working life since July 2, 1960, when I was hired by the Torrington Register on a three-month trial basis for $60 per week.

I was 26, father of three kids. In December we added two more. Twins. My only schooling in writing and reporting was a one-year correspondence course with the Palmer Institute of Authorship in Hollywood, Calif., paid for by the GI Bill after four years in the U.S. Air Force.

The Register Citizen was at that time simply The Torrington Register, located on Water Street. It wasn’t until many years later that it merged with the Winsted Citizen and became the Register Citizen.

In the above-mentioned movie, there are scenes depicting the Washington Post newsroom and a couple of scenes showing the composing room. These rang wonderful bells with me. The Register newsroom was very small, only five desks. But it was a newsroom and it was there I cut my newspaper teeth. My 51⁄4 years at the paper, I’ve always held, were my college. The people who helped me most were Howard Holcomb, the late Jim Murdick, Mary Ryan and JoAnne Morro.

Holcomb was sports editor, a job I assumed after Howard moved on to other newspaper jobs. Matt Berry was city editor. G. Walter Gisselbrecht, who hired me, was publisher and editor. I owe all of them, and others, a great debt.

When I moved to The Hartford Courant in 1965, I found a much larger, noisier newsroom and a composing room that was a symphony of slamming, banging, clicking and shouting. I learned about linotype machines, hell buckets, turtles, make-up tools, hot lead that burned your fingers if you weren’t ready and all the rest of it.

I learned writing and reporting as the pros did it (pro’s prose) and newspaper makeup with hot type, the way it was done by artisans who wore aprons and had ink on their hands.

Every day was controlled chaos and for me, every working day was beautiful.

I made out pretty well in newspapering because of my parents, in my early life, and then in the military and later, in the four years between my discharge and the Register, taught me that hard work was the most important element a person can bring to a job.

At the Register, I was allowed to make mistakes without the harshest punishment. My biggest blunder occurred when construction of the new Torrington High School was complete and was ready to open. At a Board of Education meeting, it was decided to name the old Torrington High “George Vogel School.”

I was the Register reporter assigned to cover the meeting. Returning to the office, I wrote that the new Torrington High School would be

named for Vogel, not the old. I must have been half-asleep. The headline and story blared in the next issue. Oh, dear.

People at the paper were incredibly kind, knowing any admonishment couldn’t come close to equaling the embarrassment I felt. Plus, I had always worked hard. That counted. And I’ll always remember the next day when the distinguished board chairman, Francis Hogan, came to my desk at the paper and said, “I’ve always felt that people who never do anything don’t make mistakes.”

Mr. Hogan was a man of great kindness and integrity. I’ve never forgotten that classy gesture.

And I’ve never forgotten, and never will, the sounds and shouts and burning fingers of hot type days.