Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable Newsletter

A few nights ago I wrote my last newsletter for the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable. I'd been trying to find a replacement for the last few months and was able this month to end my time as newsletter editor. I started this job 8 years ago with the October 2000 issue so it actually was kinda nice that this month became my last issue, 8 full years. It does though leave me with 97 issues, my wife suggested maybe I should do it three more months to hit the 100 mark, but 97 is a good tally too.

When I took over the newsletter it was simply a one page, two-sided issue. I kept that format for awhile but eventually I increased it to 4 pages and finally to 6 pages. I leave this post with a little sadness. After 8 years this has kinda become my baby. Every month, no matter what else is going on in my life, I've written a newsletter. Some have suffered due to a lack of time. Some have been fairly good, things I'm proud to have my name attached to.

As for me I'll be using the new free time to do more improvement projects on my house, take care of my son, and of course spend more time with my wonderful wife.

In my final newsletter I shared two personal stories and I'd like to share them with you too. My wife is not a Civil War buff, not at all. She humors me but this is not her passion like it is for me. So when we were picking paint colors for our new house she said that she didn't want to do any decorating for the Civil War. But then she picked blue and gray as the main paint colors. After the walls were painted I pointed out that the two main sides wore blue and gray. To this day she says I tricked her.

My mother got my wife a small book on the Civil War, just general facts that are mostly correct for the beginner. Mom got it as a joke. My son really liked the pictures on the front and wanted me to read it to him. I thought it wouldn't be anything he'd like but I read him the page on John Brown. It was the first page I opened to. He now loves John Brown. Nearly every night long after he's gone to bed he'll come out of his room, find us and yell "John Brown!" Since then I've tried to expand his knowledge with Lee or Sherman but John Brown has stayed his favorite.

In recent months he's started coming to meetings. He talks about these meetings all Thursday. On Fridays he tells his mother all about "his meeting." He thinks all of the roundtable members are his friends, I'm now secondary at the meetings. At each meeting he opens up a bit more with the other guys too. At the first one he was my shadow. At his most recent one he spent more time following our president around than he did with me. At first I was worried about bringing him but he keeps pretty quiet, his only complaint is that no one ever brings a picture of John Brown.