Oh, Lenster, Ill be the first to admit I'm in that dinosaur bracket ... with both feet. I'm VERY resistant to change and many here are too. I remember, way back when, anytime we had a software upgrade and our format changed with the upgrade, everyone would have a hissy-fit and hated it. Every time (me included). You get used to something and get comfortable with it and it's hard to change. Heck, I remember not too terribly long ago, Bucky ridiculing me because I was still physically going to the bank and writing checks to pay my bills through the U.S. Mail. The difference was, at that time, I'd used the same bank for 30 years and it's one block from my house. I'd go in and could name probably 90% of the employees in there and they'd say, "Good morning Mr. Kribbs" when I'd walk in the door. I finally folded and gave in to the masses. ALL my bills are paid on-line now. With that bank, I have two credit cards, a car loan, a CD, a checking account and a savings account. They also carried my mortgage for 30 years until it was paid off last August. Today, I couldn't name ONE person in that place and they wouldn't know me from Adam if I walked in. A few years back, I had a bunch of people telling me I HAD to get on Facebook. I finally caved in to the pressure and spent ONE weekend building my page. Oh, I had big plans for expansion as I have a bazillion pics I'd planned on adding, but I never went back to it. You know what I use it for? To be informed of friend's birthdays so that I can post a note on their page (or here). Now, that's even if'y because it seems they've even taken control of that aspect. I seldom get birthday notifications any more OR notices that someone has responded to a post I've made on their page. It seems, Facebook can do anything they want to control your account.

This place is like home (to me) and much more personal imho. Q/A has a good question. When we abandoned our original site, we lost all the archives. I've many times wished I could go back to that old site and pull something from the archives (that no longer exist). We started that original site to get away from the control All Outdoors had over us. They dictated what we could and could not say. They were heavy handed with their "delete button" whenever we strayed from their policies or even made an off-topic post. We started G/H to have total control and we all agreed there would be no rules or deletions. We agreed to police ourselves. If something was said that we didn't feel was appropriate, we may speak our minds and let our thoughts be known, but the only deletions that transpired, would be made by the writer of the post. I'm sure there are other sites where we could enjoy the same freedoms, but I just wouldn't know because I'm set in my ways and don't surf the net. TBH, the maintenance on this site has been zilch for a long time and has been pretty much trouble free. The cost is very low and most of our contributions have gone to other things. We sent Foobang and Co9 a little thank you years ago after they straightened the site out after we were hacked. It was a ton of work and we all (here) agreed to send them $100 each as a thank you. That was probably 13-14 years ago and we've never had a problem since. (I guess we'd left a backdoor open or something to let hackers slip in here). As for funerals and flowers, we pretty much play that by ear and have stepped up a few times over the years, but I seriously doubt ANYONE here opposed the move as it was always discussed first. I think it's a "feel-good" thing that we can all benefit from IMO and it just plain helps take away some of the pain ... for both us and the family.

Cappy also mentioned to me he was ready to give up maintaining the site, but his reason (as expressed to me) was that he just had too much on his plate and was wanting to downsize. I really think, deep down, he knew "something" was wrong. He wanted me to come up there with a U-Haul truck and load up tons of the stuff he's been collecting all his life and bring it here, sell it on eBay and split the profits with him. His parents (ill health) were wearing him down. Maintaining the farm was weighing him down and he talked about it often. I think he was tired and needed a rest and deep down inside, I feel much of that stress is what helped bring him down. But that's just me. I guess somebody needs to grab the bull by the horns and take control of the site ... make some hard decisions. But I'd sure hope there'd be a consensus here before any change like that is made. Personally, I have a feeling it would just lose that "personal touch" and I'd eventually end up treating it like I do Facebook ... a lack of interest and just too tired to adjust to the change. I don't know, it sounds narrow-minded and plain silly really, it's just the way I feel, right or wrong.