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The title says it all, folks! Have you ever received an e-mail out of the blue from a friend you knew decades ago, as a professional member? Well, I did a few weeks ago, and what a blast from the past it was!
Many moons ago, I was a member of the TeX Users' Group (TUG). TUG was founded in 1980 for educational and scientific purposes to provide an organization for those who have an interest in systems for text typesetting and font design and are users of TeX and Metafont – Donald Knuth's revolutionary typesetting system. TUG is run by its members for its members and represents the interests of TeX users worldwide.
I spent 10 years as a member of this organization and during that time won its First Annual Donald Knuth Scholarship award, served as a newsletter columnist for about four years, presented at two annual conferences and served a one-year term on its Board. During my tenure in this group, I met with a lovely lady, Mimi Burbank, from SCRI (Supercomputing Research Institute housed at Florida State University). Mimi and I served on many TUG committees together.
As my career took the next bend in the road, I left behind the organization and all my friends. I was no longer working with mainframe text-typesetting systems, but instead, I was using applications such as, Ventura Publisher, FrameMaker, Word and WordPerfect. This is not to say that I didn't work with Word and WordPerfect before my TeX adventures. For those who may not be familiar with TeX, it is a command-driven typesetting program where the user inputs all details of the page layout in a non-WYSIWYG format. Today, the product has improved itself with a WYSIWYG version, but I still opt for the command-driven format. And, yes, I still use this software at home — I was once a guru on it, but no more.
But Mimi has been and still is an STC member. She recently e-mailed me when she saw that I had been elected as 2nd VP of the Lone Star Chapter. Friendship does travel in a circuitous route. You never know how serving in your chapter or professional organization will bring long lost friends out of the blue to say, "We've lost touch and I want to get back in touch and find out what is going on in your life!!!!!!" This was Mimi's message to me.
I encourage and challenge you all to send a quick e-mail to a long lost STC member. Bringing them back into the fold not only helps increase membership, but also provides us with another resource to tap into for speaking, volunteering or networking during these rough times.
In the words of Porky Pig, "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!"