Entering the Twenty-First Century

I would be greatly remiss if I did not acknowledge in this blog the individual who has dragged me, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century.

Back around 1978, I think it was, I was the editor of the “Granite State Gazette” and I hired, right out of high school, a young cub reporter named Max Hartshorne. Best move I ever made. We had some great times at that paper before he went on to fame and glory in Portland.

Max was into the computer age early on; I inherited his old Kaypro, which for me was a big step up from the old selectric typewriters I had been using since college days.

I remember when he told me I ought to get something called “email” I replied that I didn’t have anything to say to anybody in the world. Pretty funny when you look at all these blog entries.

Years later he bought a website. I didn’t really know what one was. Now it turns out that while web design involves a bunch of skills hitherto unknown to humanity, a website still requires a lot of old-fashioned editing skills that date back to Homer — not Homer Simpson, the blind Greek guy.

So now I get to correspond with writers and photographers all over the world as associate editor of GoNOMAD. And for an old-fashioned newspaper editor, web design is like being in Oz.
Back at the Granite State Gazette we used to have to literally cut and paste strips of type and headlines and get someone to make half-tones of the photos, which generally ended up looking like they were taken in a coal mine.

Now it’s edit the copy, insert photos, align left, align right, put in links — which, when you think about it, are really kind of super twenty-first century footnotes — put in some key words for the spiders, you know, and bingo!

Max and GoNOMAD Webmaster Joe O’Beng, my friend and patient teacher, are introducing me, in small doses, to the mysteries of HTML. Somtimes I even edit the code! Imagine that.

And all this because a guy had a little vision and decided to be bold! Way to go, Max. And thanks.