I’ve been participating in online communities since my first IBM PS/1 in 1990 (or 91, too old to remember now). AOL 1.0 floppy in that drive and bam, there I was. That old 10 mhz processor whizzing away with 1 mb ram. I can still hear the modem’s buzzing dial tone and then the dialing with electronic talking happening at a whopping 4800 bps. And oh man, hit 9600?? Wow. That was back in the day when there was no such thing as Spam, or anything else for that matter.
My first chat room was of course, South Carolina 30 and over. It started out with only 12 of us and quickly jumped to 24. Man what a blast that was. Chatting online. I did the AOL thing from the beginning, and I hosted (as far as I know) the first SC AOL party here in Hartsville some 15/16 years ago. Okay, now don’t laugh. It was at a local skating rink.
If I remember right, it was a little over half a dozen folks from as far away as Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Columbia and other places came to spend the afternoon skating and just shooting the sh**.
From there it turned into a full blown addiction. I can say I put approximately 300,000 miles on my little Acura Integra within a 3 year time frame. Yes, I would go as far to say I was a highly esteemed FOG of AOL back in the day!
Met hundreds if not thousands of people from all walks of life. I tell ya those were some really strange and exciting times. Traveling from town to town, city to city just to meet people in person that I’d gotten to know online. I’d say I traveled most of the Eastern United States, sometimes having a great experience, and sometimes a horror story…from hell! Lol
I quit with AOL and chat room communities years ago. It got to where it just wasn’t fun anymore, not like it had been in the beginning. There were those of us that had been “leaders” of our room, however it became too intense with technology. More sophisticated programs, spam, viruses, and not to mention deviants coming out the woodwork. So, I cancelled AOL and never looked back. Needless to say, I’ve had a LOT of experience with “online communities”.
Back in the early part of the summer of this year, I went to a neighboring town’s liquor store to get a bottle of scotch and case of wine for my wife. While there I noticed something I had never noticed before. A walk in humidor! I stepped inside and the walls were lined with boxes of cigars. I had no idea about cigars and stood in there for the most part of an hour just looking at each box, picking up a stick and looking it over, trying to decide which one, which one?
I ended up getting a Punch Corojo, which turned out to be pretty good. And, of course, I started browsing online looking up information on cigars. You can take a guess where that led me. You guessed it! Cigarpass! I looked around and read, watched and read some more. I registered not long after, not really thinking much about it other than I would have better access to look up more stuff. It took a few days and finally got the email stating I had been approved for membership. I signed on and filled out my profile, then went and did my simple introduction. I remember going back so many times to see who had responded. Alas, not many! Lol Hillbillysteaks was the first PM I ever received. Yes, he popped my PM cherry!
I got all excited, opened it, and he had basically gotten “the wrong number” ::laugh::. Thought I was someone else.
After being on for a very short time, I found myself being drawn into this place as if there were some kind of force behind it. I loved the humor, although it does take a little getting used to. However, there’s so much trust and honor between so many in this community, and to see it every day is just simply amazing. There’s not a day that hasn’t gone by that I haven’t come to Cigarpass and seen some kind of unconditional act of giving to another. If not in some sort of gift, then in simple words shared. I can say that in all the years of being online, I have never come across a place such as CP. That one word that seems to be used more often than not, amazing.
As a newbie I look in from the outside and wait with total patience and abiding. Knowing that someday I too will be a part of this. All that is CP is the people in it. Those that protect it and nurture it. This is not just an “online community”. It is a family. One that I look forward to becoming a part of.
The only bad part of it so far? Not being closer to everyone so I can HERF!!!
