I'm old enough to flash back to those old Raleigh cigarette ads where they'd say. "What would you be missing if you didn't smoke Raleigh?", and all the furniture in the room gotten through the Raleigh Coupons included in every pack disappeared one by one with the sound of a "Ding"! (Of course the standard joke of the time was that 10,000 Raleigh coupons could buy you an iron lung, but I digress....) Anyway, here's what I've gained in slightly less than a year among you.....


New friends I've talked with, both in print and in person, too numerous to mention. Others, whose posts I've read benefitted by or were entertained by, but have not been personally acknowledged--Know you ARE apprieciated! The feeling of community, help and guidance offered and exchanged when needed, forgiveness given when nescessary.
Being there with me through some rough times, shared or unshared.

Access to new and old music, in print, sampled, heard live, bought and exchanged among aforementioned friends.

Knowledge gained and shared. The chance to act as an authority one minute on one thread and a student with a blank slate the next on another, either acknowledged or by merely lurking. The chance to engage in meaningful dialogue of all sorts. Information about people and things in other places that stacks of old National Geographics in an attic couldn't begin to touch. The opportunity to express myself creatively and to bounce ideas, serious and humorous, off of some of the sharper minds I've had the pleasure to encounter and be inspired by them.

The excuse to spend many pleasureable hours that could have been wasted on housework, paperwork, chores and drudgery with the likes (and dislikes) of you, which reminds me.....I've got a stack of things to do that I've put off, so I'll catch you folks later.....

...But thanks again! I'm a better man for having been here.

Stradling the thin line
between sentiment and sediment,

Severn