[Source](https://unsplash.com/photos/yAHIP-pVi9U)
Earth's main and magnificent satellite provides some couples romantic evenings and others enough light for exciting adventures.
It was actually more frightening, actually, to Mrs. Ella Varick, but, she was not about to let her husband go alone to the important work of the first evening of the full moon.
James Varick IV was the editor of the powerful but thoroughly hated *Lofton County Free Voice,* the first and only Black newspaper to survive more than a week in Lofton County, VA.
The paper had survived and thrived because it was decentralized – it had no presses, and those working with it scattered to print shops and the self-serve printers in them to print the paper.
The next day was a triple issue – the *Free Voice* was going to print all the names of the 12,000 Black and Latino servants the police had initially refused to count among the victims of the Ridgeline Fire. The list was compiled from family members who had come to the *Free Voice* because no one else would hear them and give their lost members even recognition, much less justice.
A triple edition meant all hands had to be on deck – the editor-in-chief and his wife had to print two reams of paper's worth of editions and get those positioned in their assigned areas in Lofton County.
Mrs. Varick knew that there were plenty of people in Lofton County who would gladly kill her husband just for posting the paper, much less being the editor-in-chief.
So: moonlight print and post was not exactly a romantic outing for her and her husband … nonetheless, the closeness she and her husband enjoyed in the work was wonderful, as she helped him get the papers together and then covered for him and kept the car running while he posted up.
“I knew I married the right one,” he purred as they finished their last print-and-post run that early Friday morning.
“Me too, James.”
A sweet kiss by the light of the moon before it set over the Blue Ridge, and the Varicks headed for home.
**Photo by Kym MacKinnon on Unsplash**