The Ecphorizer

Editorial Issue #36
John Cumming

Issue #36 (August 1984)



THE LAST SEVERAL ISSUES have been increasingly difficult to produce, due to the distractions of more mundane affairs. In fact, since the beginning of the year, I have been sent on business trips by my company several times, and our business manager, Tod Wicks, has suffered the same fate. This month I was finally sent out of town during the very week that I would have begun working on THE ECPHORIZER, but it didn't matter, as three other members of the staff were in Austria and one was in Ireland, and poor Tod was stuck in Saudi Arabia for three weeks (courtesy of his employer again - all that heat and no beer!). The schedule was perforce slipped a week or so. To make matters worse, the Apple computer I have been using to type and edit copy failed just before my trip.

We happen to be surrounded with a veritable armada of computers, so for the past week the precious writings of our honored contributors have been scattered across the countryside, parceled out to our repatriated staffers. For myself, I have been lately editing copy on my humble little VIC-20 (they all laughed when I sat down to program). The copy I prepare is sent via telephone and modem to an Apple III. We have equipment, expertise, and motivation, but we just don't seem to have much time. So that's why your ECPHORIZER is coming late, lately.

Incidentally, the trip to Ireland was made by our newest staffer, Sue O'Brien. She told me before she left that she was with a group tour of Irish pubs, and that the general plan was to drink and dance the evenings away, pub to pub, across Ireland. I may have misremembered some of this, but she is off this evening on a rafting trip and I can't confirm anything, not that I'd want to. I love the story just as I remember it. 

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Contributor Profile

John Cumming

john served as a medic in the Vietnam War then returned to Silicon Valley where he has worked as a tchnical writer and programmer at a number of Valley firms. In the 70s - 90s, John held many appointed and elected positions in local and national Mensa - notably as editor of the SFRM newletter Intelligencer and Local Secretary of SFRM, as well as serving as Regional Vice Chair for a number of years. John enjoys a good game of chess and likes nothing better than to curl up and read ancient or niche dictionaries, many of which are reviewed in these pages.