Started using Mac Plus and SE at WZZD, where I was FT announcer/producer/board-op, around 1986. The chief engineer was a Mac convert and had talked management into an all-Mac office/production complement. It lasted a few years until a change in ownership, and an unbreakable Windows mentality. Oh, the ignominy!

Eventually got my first Mac rig at home thanks to a video production company for whom I was doing a lot of voiceover work. The owner was known as "Mr. Mac" because he saw to it that it was an all-Mac plant. I suggested a barter scheme in return for a Mac, and after thinking about it for almost a year, he called me one day and said "Come on over and pick up these packages." A Mac Plus, 20 MB CMS hard drive, and an ImageWriter--$2,600 worth of trade. Step one was an upgrade to 4 MB RAM, get an external HD floppy drive, a bigger hard drive, and a "Fanny Mac" vent pack for the Plus. The rest is history: LC III, Performa 637, iMac revB. I'm overdue for an upgrade.

Sometime around 1990, I attended a Main Line School Night class on Excel/Word and picked up an MLMUG flyer someone had left. Came to a meeting and was hooked. According to the old NLs I perused, I must have joined the group in January 1991.

My first NL article was as assistant to then editor Court Smith in August 1991. I also inherited the Shareware Librarianship from John Clutz. Got my own byline in March 1992, and my first "sictran.sit" column in April 92. "Sic Transit Gloria" famous phrase + .sit, standard StuffIt archive suffix, before .sea and .sitx came along.

Court Smith decides it is time to pass on the editor's reigns in June 1992; "selects" me as his heir. July/August 1992 my first issue as editor. Got my own copy of PageMaker 4,2, but leaned heavily on Dottie Strykowsky, the page layout gal at Bala Printing [owned by then Prez Craig TenBroeck, who also printed the NLs using whatever color paper available after a big press run] to figure out how to use it. Also owe much to Bill Achuff and former associate Maureen Stuart of the then version of User Group Alliance.

The first NL I apparently did on my own was Vol. 4 No. 1, January 1993. [The Volume and issue numbers have had their own history of Chaplinesque wandering.] Not bad for an amateur, but then, that's what made and makes the Mac so insanely great!

Proceeded to steal every layout idea I could from other NLs, with a big grab of debtitude to the then-struggling NYMUG Journal. Channeled it pretty thoroughly beginning May 1995 issue. Read a bunch of books on the subject, but owe 99% of my WYSIWYG chops to Robin Williams and her Pagemaker Companion.

Tried a sideways 11x14 layout of which I had become fond May 1993 thru April 1995, but enough folks complained that I returned to standard portrait 8.5x11 next issue. So much for innovation. J

Craig decided to step aside as Prez by December 1994. I became Prez in January 1995. Appeared as such on Feb 1995 masthead. In my columns of Oct-Nov 1995 I wrote extensively and with much ardor about the crappy automation system WZZD had installed, which was causing much consternation and screwing up constantly. [It eventually calmed down, but never worked entirely right even up until it's near-completer replacement by a new system in October of this year more about that below.] I was also experiencing some personal emotional issues that year that were clouding my performance in several areas. The final nail was my being terminated the Day Before Thanksgiving, 1995 from full-time employment at WZZD. It was not related to the articles, however. Or that nobody else there but me was a Mac aficionado. The new Chief Engineer just sneered at Macs as being toys for the unenlightened.

I was devastated by the events of the year and to top it all off I became very ill just before Christmas. I spent 10 weeks recovering in the home of some dear friends from church. In my absence, the fellow I will vote for as Man of The Year any year he would like to be, John Donnelly, took the reigns of the NL for a couple months, adding to his already horrendous workload. Others contributed as well. This is a great world sometimes.

Came back, sort of, in March 1996. I had managed to more or less sleep through both the Blizzard of 96 and the John DuPont debacle. Actually, I planned that very well! Not.

One of our dearest NL contributors, Ina Meyers, passed on in April of 1997, and I added the nascent You Shoulda Been There column to my list. Picked up a phony byline of Nelly Jingo, as in "By Nelly Jingo!" which I had heard or read uttered somewhere by someone once. Not long after, some others in the group followed in Bob Barton's footsteps and began contributing columns. After that, and thanks to the Internet, I never had any problem finding content for each issue of the NL unlike Craig, who, as the first editor way back when the NL began, practically had to beg for someone to contribute something!

Following further in Craig's fancy footsteps [he sings quite well, too], decided I'd had it as Prez by end of 2000; The Amazing Moe took the helm in January 2001. To complete the baton-passing, filed my last "SicTran.sit" in the December 2001 issue. Steve Evans took over in January 2002, going to the long-discussed on-demand pdf download format on the website. I went on sabbatical. Bob Barton can show from his extensive and well-maintained stats the growth MLMUG experienced in my years as Prez, and I'm glad so many good things happened while in office. Lots of fun and a lot learned, especially with a vice-prez like Moe!

Along the way, WZZD, for still obscure reasons, hired me back the Day After Thanksgiving of 1997; became full-time again shortly thereafter. But it has not been the same. As I write this, the new automation system at what is now WFIL/WZZD, which, though eminently flaky, is actually working pretty well, has fulfilled its mandate: I am one of several FT board-ops who have been eliminated by the machine. Barring last-minute changes and unexplored options, of which there are, thankfully, several, my last day of regular employment there will be November 29.

Here we go again. I could probably sleep for another 10 weeks--but I expect to be able to attend meetings again in 2003! Thanks to so many of you who offered me so much support. You've got some fine talent with big ideas at the helm these days.

— John Linton

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