Once upon a time. . . in the days before Clark04, I got a little color inkjet printer to use with my computer at home.

The little printer was proud and shiny and made lovely colored printouts. It could even make copies! How pleased I was to have this handy little device. It was not a very speedy machine, but for the few things I needed to print and copy, it was just perfect. And it didn’t take up too much space on my desk.

Then came the Clark04 campaign. There were letters to write to people in faraway states. And flyers to make. And business cards and post cards to print. And articles of all kinds about General Clark and the campaign to file away for later reference and review.

The little printer churned away for hours at time, pumping out whatever was asked of it. It did have a way of running through ink cartridges. . . but if I kept it fed with new cartridges, it pushed through the workload. It’s only handicap was speed. Had the campaign continued longer, I might have been tempted to replace it for a big, fast laser jet printer.

But in the spring of 2004, the little inkjet reverted back to its leisurely pace and hasn’t been challenged too much since.

Until this week. . .

A last minute opportunity presented itself to send some StopIranWar material to this weekend's peace rally in Washington with a young man from Houston. That was on Tuesday. His flight was on Thursday morning, so we arranged to meet on Wednesday evening after work. The only time left at home before then was Tuesday evening. So the little Inkjet once again had a challenge to meet. There were flyers and business cards and petitions to print with the stunning designs from the StopIranWar website.

From about 8 o’clock in the evening until 3 o’clock the next morning the little Inkjet churned away. Despite a raging thunderstorm outside, it never lost it’s power.

“I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. . .”

While the few hundred items it produced at it’s tortoise-like pace will only be a small “drop in the ocean” relative to the thousands of people anticipated for the peace rally, the little printer did a masterful and unflinching job of those things. And since the young man was flying, there was a limit to how much he could take anyway. He had no doubt that the material would be well-received.

The little Inkjet came through again.