WHERE IT COMES FROM

Knitalot 3 recently asked, “Where do you find this stuff?!? LOL!” Well, let me tell you.

I had the brain injury that disabled me in 1986, and I did very little for many months. Then one day in 1988, the then park manager said to me, “Hey, you’re not doing anything! You do this!” “This” turned out to be a monthly publication for mobilehome parks printed by a local printer, who made his money by soliciting advertising aimed at mobilehome owners. There was no cost to the individual parks, and the printer allowed some 20 pages for the park editors to submit their own local stories. The rest of the magazine (as we came to call it) was filled with ads.

What the park manager handed me was pretty pitiful. The only copy he had was a handwritten calendar for the coming month, and a brief article from himself.

Well, as the firefly whose tail was removed said, I was delighted no end. I doubt that the manager knew that I had worked on various publications since I was a teenager. This was right up my alley!

At the time I had an Apple IIe and a dot matrix printer. My wife Amalie offered to do typing for me, and I started looking for copy. I was quite excited about it. I interviewed park residents, wrote up stories about park activities, a few people sent in articles, and I would fill in with any decent humor that came my way, often by email.

This went on for some years. Over time, I made improvements. Dot matrix copy was not very satisfactory, and eventually I bought an ink jet printer. Never did get to a laser printer, but my current ink jet turns out beautiful copy.

It used to take me 10 days to two weeks from start to finish to get copy ready for the printer, and Amalie and I would plan our vacations around the magazine requirements. Anyway, after about 10 years I was getting tired, and started asking for help. Not much happened. After 12 years I started writing occasional articles saying that I was going to retire, and would someone please take over. Nothing happened. Now one must remember that this is a senior park, and at that time very few residents had a computer. It’s quite different today.

By 2001 - 13 years since I’d started, I was really getting tired, and I wrote an article saying that the June, 2002 issue would be my last one. Ten or eleven more months went by with no volunteers, and I was quite prepared to shut it down.

TO BE CONTINUED. Tune in soon to find out what happened next. And Knitalot 3, I realize I have not yet really answered your question, but all will be revealed in the final installment. You may already have a clue.

Fun time:
This video came in a few days ago. Enjoy!