Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 63: F.O.S.S.I.L.S. at 5 … pungent, robust, pink, funky, Porter-loving and state fair-going.
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“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.” – Attributed to Robert Heinlein
Walking the Dog was the official newsletter of the Fermenters of Special Southern Indiana Libations Society, and producing it was a monthly commitment I undertook and maintained during the club’s first decade of existence.
It is not self-aggrandizement for me to state unequivocally that the post office’s unofficial vow applied: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stay(ed) this courier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds.” By hook or crook, I never missed a deadline.
Within the decade’s admittedly narrow context of American homebrewing club information sheets, the 1990s were mine, just as Michael Jordan owned the same decade in basketball. WTD was a superior product, and to this very day I’m proud of it. Had there been a Great American Beer Festival medal competition for homebrewing club newsletters, I’d have liked my chances every single damn year.
But even His Airness finally retired, and as the year 2000 arrived, I was inwardly cringing at the prospect of continuing to put the newsletter together. Symptoms of burnout were too obvious to ignore, and ten years of writing, editing, producing, photocopying, stapling and stamping the monthly editions had come to feel like an all-encompassing repetitive stress disorder.
Moreover, the outside world was changing fast at the dawn of a new millennium. Even the most diehard techno-Luddites, including the author, spotted glancing knowingly into a nearby mirror, were grudgingly adapting to the onslaught of the internet. Specifically, for the single finest reason apart from porn, everyone was acquiring an e-mail account.
The company’s patchwork word processor was dot-matrixing its last in 1995, and we acquired our first desktop computer with internet capability for roughly six times the cost of the laptop I’m using to write these words in 2024. One day in 2000 I noticed the fax machine coated with inch-thick dust and realized how long it had been since I’d touched it.
I methodically conducted a person-to-person survey of active club members and determined that almost nine of every ten had e-mail accounts. So what was taking me so long? The choice was clear...Read more
