Wow, Tim...

...Thanks for that walk down memory lane. Somewhere tucked into one of these 703 Bankers Boxes that own my office are some old chat logs from the AOL chat days.

Here's a few other 'oldies' participants in the AOL "Lighthouse Collectibles" Board: George Kirk (CaptKirk), Bob Hayes (RedFoxDoc), Chuck Cassidy (KINGCRIB) Yvonne (Oriental77), LadyKeeper (Nancy Tardio), Sara Morton (SMorton102), 'Twiggy' Holmes (Twiggy4) and of course those with us still - Sean Thompson (BuyGlass), Tim Aucremann (JTimothyA), GloStan (Stan & Gloria), Paul Brady (Engbrady), Fred Kuhlman, Bob Mckeon (BIRI97), Jim Johnston (KeeperJJ), and others - please forgive me if I've forgotten to include you in this list.

I started collecting in August 96 - and a couple of months later signed up for AOL - I had been paying Compuserve their monthly dues for years and the graphics of AOL and my (then) Macintosh were attractive. (I also subscribed to Apple's ill-fated "e-world".)

Shortly I discovered there was a Lighthouse Collectibles bulletin board and my collecting took off. The fact that there were other collectors out there who were as fanatical about these lighthouse sculptures was re-assuring (that I wasn't the only one) which justified the "Buy Them All" mentality.

And I made a lot of nice friends out of the AOL board and from the HLCIC. After the HLCIC was running (Feb 97), I made an appointment with the Youngers to drive over to San Diego and show them what I had done - but a health problem in the last minute, prevented my making the trip and meeting with them.

I'm still as excited about the latest lighthouses as I was in late 1996. And the Internet and AOL have changed the way many people collect. Before it was news once a quarter in the form of the Lighthouse Legacy. Now, hundreds of people know the news every day -- and share news about collecting. Like Fred finding the Gray's Harbor variation. That sent 20+ people out looking at dealers' stock around the country. Pre-Internet, that wouldn't have happened. Or Richard Hetzler whose wife spotted the misspelling on "Mulkilteo". And two of our regulars found one - actually one of them found TWO.

As always, sharing and the friendly spirit among Harbour Lights collectors including those on and off the Internet is the greatest reward.

Neither the web site nor these forums would be possible without the help of many, many people, a few of whom I named above.

Ride on!

0 :>) St. John of the Internet