Hope everyone enjoyed your holiday, and dealt okay with the trauma of getting back to work and realizing the next major holiday isn't until Memorial Day. Unless, of course, you're a teacher or a state worker...

 

And the first CTO year is HISTORY.

Well, we did it. After God only knows how long we talked about starting it, we finally got this thing going. The old Clobberin' Times was reborn as the new Clobberin' Times Online. And what do you know, here we are on issue #6. That's the close of the first year. Not bad, folks. Great to have the folks here contributing to this, great to have all the reader-only types on the Times Yahoo Group to chat with and keep up with.

A lot of memories wrapped up in the words "Clobberin' Times". A lot of work by a lot of people, a lot of fun, a lot of lifelong friends made. If you were part of the original 'Times, just stop for a moment and think where your life was when you got that first stapled issue in the mail. A lot has changed since then, huh? Well, one thing hasn't changed in all that time. We're still all gigantic nerds. God bless us, every one.

Thanks for being here, everyone. Good to still be with you.

 

G. Barry Winston
Feb. 13, 1969 - Jan. 1, 2006

We were all stunned by the news when Jim McClain let us know. Jim and so many others lost a dear friend on New Year's Eve of this year. In many ways, so did those of us who never even met him.

If you were part of the Clobberin' Times, you knew the name G. Barry Winston. You just did. That point was driven home to me, after I got the news, when I met up with Tim at work and asked "You remember the name Barry Winston?" Without so much as a pause, he said "G. Barry Winston?". It's been over fifteen years since Tim has heard that name. And it was still right there.

Barry wasn't a member of the Clobberin' Times. He was never on the roster. Yet we all knew his name. We knew him through the zines of Jim, and others. We knew his work. A talented artist, he was best known to us for his inks over Jim's pencils, which produced amazing results. They were just the perfect artistic pairing. I still remember when I ordered up a five-character Forte shot from the two of them for the 100th run anniversary of the game. I remember taking flack from people who felt I paid way too much just for a piece of art. After I got the piece, that thought never crossed my mind. It still stands up as one of the best pieces we have in our now-vast Forte art collection.

(click for larger art)

I was honestly trying to figure out why this news hit me so hard, considering I'd never met the man. And it didn't have anything to do with me still thinking he's the best inker of I've seen. It just hit me that he was, without even knowing it, a part of my life. A name right at the top of my head. Mine and many others. It was small part, yes, but he was a part of my personal history. I thought about his name over the years, every once in while wondering what he was doing, thinking about tracking him down for some ink work. Never met him, and me, some guy in California, had his name rolling around in my head and popping up from time to time. A name that always brought up positive feelings and good memories. I could only hope to have that kind of affect on people in my life. I'd consider that to be a hell of a high compliment.

And is seemed so unfair that I never got to meet the man. Obviously, my feelings on the matter are nothing compared to what his friends went through (the number of them attested to at the showing at his memorial). Or his parents, Guy M. Winston III and Samniang Changsena. Or his daughter, Brianna, who lost more than anyone that night.

But this is the Clobberin' Times, and it's only in this context I can speak on it. It's a publication many of us have been part of since 1988. Very few of us knew him. But he was a part of us. A part of this thing that we've all been together in for so many years. Maybe that doesn't mean much in the grand scope of things. But it means something to us. We'll all remember the name G. Barry Winston. Just as we always have. We'll all look through our old issues and see his familiar signature on works of art that made us smile. Most of us weren't lucky enough to know him. But we're lucky enough to remember him. And, in our own way, we will miss him.

 

Next Issue Deadline

Deadline for the next CTO issue is March 31, 2006, for inclusion in the April 1, 2006 issue. Just put your stuff on a web page (or in a PDF) and e-mail the link (or the file) to me at:

oconnellmd@aol.com

As always, any questions, drop me a line, or post on the board. See you next time, 'Timers.

Michael O’Connell
Central Mailer, The Clobberin’ Times Online