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Quoting those memorable words of the great Baron Von Frankenstein
in the title may be a little corny, but what the heck, I have never
claimed to be a good writer anyhow, and it is a narrative hook. It
may be more appropriate than you may think. It frightens me some
too. What? FAOL does.
You see, in the beginning (go way back) there were no cars. Your
grand, grand, grand uncles road a horse to the job. Probably
worked rather close to home. Then that Ford guy made a car and
folks started to drive to work (think longer distances). Then
they really got out of the nest on airplanes. Now your uncles
(the ones who would have taught you how to fly fish) are
scattered all over the country. Lucky if you even see them on
holidays. The dissemination of the family group happened. Not
good for learning how to fly fish. Something had to be done;
and was. Trout Unlimited followed fairly soon by the Federation
of Fly Fishers.
Two great outfits with high standards, strong principles
and lofty goals. Different as night and day, but equally
important. They both had their place or else they would not
have been formed and would not exist yet to this day. Then
along comes this thing, FAOL.
Why was it created and why is it still alive and where will
it go? The answer is "I'm not sure," to all three of those
questions. We wanted to set up a place where the guy could
come when he couldn't find an 'uncle' to teach him fly
fishing. Ever wonder where the expression came from if you
give up, "Cry Uncle?" Sure, some fellow trying to learn how
to fly fish (think really bad humor here) before FAOL was
formed.
So, I suppose that (your online uncle) is kind of what we
tried to come up with. Next we wanted things to be free and
easy to access. Back then a lot of web sites were charging
for 'registration'. I don't think too many of those are
around any more. At least we are still free and will
always be so. I wanted new things each week and mostly
that has happened due to the great support of all of you
who agreed. Involvement and submissions have been wonderful.
Some wanted to become even more connected to it and we set
up the 'Friends' area and that seems to be a hit too.
Yet, if I scratch a note on a slip of paper it is more real
than this is. Ironically, ephemeral may be an apt choice of
names for any web site. Kick the plug out an we are not even
history. We do not exist and never did. Poof!
Where is all of this going and how long will we be here?
You know there is no answer to that. Somehow, a long time
I guess. Seems like there is a lot of information gathered
here and has been done so by some pretty fine folks. Thank
you, all of you. For right now... "It's alive!" ~ James Castwell
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