Carolyn Baird recently was interviewed by Wouter Schenk from The Netherlands. Wouter is preparing some articles about Autism and Internet for the Dutch Association for Autism. This is a transcript of their interview and is included in my page with Wouter's and Carolyn's permission.
Carolyn Baird is the listowner of PAN-L (Parents Autistics Network
List). This is a private list which contributes emotional support for
autistic people and parents of autistic children worldwide by sharing their
experience and feelings through the Internet.
Carolyn, a high functioning autist, is mother of four children.
Wouter Schenk works for the local government as an environmental
specialist and writes articles on freelance basis.
Wouter has two children. His oldest son is on the mild side of the autistic
spectrum.
In the first part of the Interview Wouter did ask Carolyn to tell something about her life and family. In the second part Carolyn tells about the theme Autism and Internet and her list PAN-L.
Publication of this article is only allowed with permission of the editor and writer which can be obtained by emailing to Wouter Schenk
WS (Wouter Schenk): Where do you come from...
CB (Carolyn Baird): I live in Glendale, Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia. Glendale is about 20 Kilometres south of Newcastle and 120 Kilometres north of Sydney on the east coast of Australia. I was born only a few kilometres from here at a place called Barnsley and raised on the western shores of Lake Macquarie, which is the largest coastal lake in Australia, in a town called Bolton Point. When I was 16 I left home to attend Sydney University and stayed in Sydney until my oldest child was 8 months old. I then moved back to this area so I could raise my child in a better environment and close to family and friends - living first in Teralba where my father was raised and where many of my relatives still live. After the breakup of my marriage, the children and I lived in many different places in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie areas, but finally settled in Glendale in our own home in 1980.
WS: Tell me something about your family..
CB: Both my mother and father were born in Australia as was my paternal grandmother. My paternal grandfather came to Australia with his parents as a young teenager from Lancashire, England. My maternal grandmother came to Australia with her first husband from Sheffield, England. She had 8 young children when her husband died - the youngest of whom was club-footed. My maternal grandfather came from Belfast, Ireland at age 22. He was a merchant seaman and jumped ship in Australia when he received the news that his family had emigrated to the US, hoping to get work on another ship that would take him to join them. Unable to get work on any of the US bound ships he came to work in a local coal mine to earn his fare but he met my grandmother and married her despite the fact that she was 20 years older than him and had 8 children, some of whom were only a few years younger than him. My mother was their only child. My father was the oldest son of 9 children - he had one older sister. My father who is now 86 was a coal miner all his life until he retired at age 60. He now lives in Queensland with his second wife. My mother died in 1964 when I was 18. I am their second child - one of 3 girls. My older sister lives not far from me, but my younger sister lives in Mt Tom Price in northern Western Australia. Both my sisters have only one child each, both girls. I lost count of the number of first cousins I have years ago but most of them have remained in this area and I occasionally run into one of them in the street - they seem to recognise me quite readily although it's often 30 or more years since we've seen each other - that's the only contact I have with any of them.
My youngest child's father, Kevin Donaldson, is the great-grandson of my great-grandparents who came from Lancashire. His mother was my father's first cousin. We discovered this fact a few months after we met. Kevin is a self-employed house-painter and we first met in 1981 when I contracted him to paint my house and he has remained an important part of my life and my family's life since then. Kevin's paternal grandfather came from Sweden, but he anglicized his surname to Donaldson and no-one seems to know what it was before that. Kevin is the youngest male in a family of 9 and the only surviving male in his family. His oldest sister, lives only a few streets from us and she and I have become friends over the last 6 years since we first met at the local primary school which my daughter and her foster-daughter attends. Kevin has little contact with any other members of his family.
WS: What is your relation with autism...
CB: My childhood was very confusing and painful for me. I became aware I was different from my older sister at a very early age from hearing my father say to me "Why can't you be more like your sister". I never knew what it was that I did that always made him so angry with me. After all what was wrong with walking on tiptoe, dancing and singing around the house, not looking strangers in the eyes and spending most of my time reading instead of playing outside in the sun or with other children. He claimed that I ignored him all the time when he spoke to me, but I never heard him because I was either thinking or reading but he never could accept that as a reason. My mother was very different though. She was always warm and gentle with me and she seemed to understand and appreciate my differences from my sister. She allowed me to do all the things I liked doing so long as my father wasn't home and even encouraged or joined me in some of them.
My mother started me at school at 4 years of age on a trial basis because of my shyness with strangers; my lack of language development and my insatiable appetite for books and learning. Evidently I was driving her crazy with my demands to read books to me nonstop and would fly into a tantrum if she refused. They hoped that being with other children would settle me down and aid my other problems and I think it did because there were lots of rules at school and once I learnt what they were, I didn't have any problems with the teachers. I still, however, felt very different to the other children but I quickly learnt how to pretend to be like them. When my speech improved I still had a problem saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and having others laugh at me for that, but over the years I learnt how to make that appear as if it was intentional and I was just trying to be funny.
My language problems and the feeling of being different continued through into adulthood, but it wasn't until I realised that my oldest son was mimicking my behaviour as a young child that I realised that this was something more than me just being 'mentally unbalanced'.
From that time on I searched for a 'name' for our condition and to find others like us with similar sets of problems. I researched all the literature on mental handicaps, learning and language disabilities I could find, but while many of them seemed similar, the long list of familial symptoms I'd compiled rarely achieved more than a 50% match. Over a period of 18 years, I kept looking for the ideal match to no avail, while I raised my children to be aware of their differences from others and tried to use the benefit of my experience to help them develop strategies to minimise the impact their symptoms might have on their self-esteem. I did consult various specialists over the years and my children did receive a variety of diagnoses (Dyslexia, Dysphasia, Specific Learning Deficit and 'neurotic mother') but there wasn't one that I felt told the whole story.
While pregnant with my youngest child I returned to University to complete my degree and chose to major in Linguistics so that I'd have access to all the latest research on language disabilities. Three years later I was still researching when I took my daughter to another specialist for help in finding an appropriate preschool for her. The ordinary preschools wouldn't accept her as she was not toilet-trained and she was non-verbal. During that assessment the word 'autism' was mentioned but later disregarded because it was alleged that she'd made eye-contact with the specialist and was 'obviously not mentally retarded' so she was given the diagnosis of Multiple Developmental Delays and referred to the Early Intervention Preschool for enrolment. This is what I'd been after, but the word 'autism' kept echoing in my mind. I hadn't included that subject in my research before as like the specialist I had a preconceived notion of what 'autism' was and knew we didn't match that. However, as soon as I started reading about it, I could see that this was a better match than anything I'd encountered so far.
As coincidence would have it, it was at this time I gained access to the Internet through the University. I had completed both an undergraduate and honours degree in Linguistics and was about to undertake a post-graduate degree which entitled me to a computer account and unlimited Internet access. I started off on Usenet reading all the posts I could find in the medical groups relating to learning and language disabilities or references to articles or lists dealing specifically with those subjects. My knowledge and understanding increased dramatically over the next 18 months but still there was a nagging question in my mind - was there a form of autism where individuals could have normal or above average intelligence? No-one seemed to know. Then by chance I saw on sci.med an announcement of a new list having been formed - the Autism list out of St Johns. I signed on and within a few days my question was not only answered in the affirmative - it was called High Functioning Autism - but I had made contact with other High Functioning Autistics like me. I can't begin to explain the emotional impact that had on me. It was a time of enormous relief at finding the answer after such a long search; a time of sadness at not having found the answer sooner so that I might have better helped my children in their earlier years; a time of anger at all the hurtful things that had been said and done to me over the years for something that had been beyond my control; and a time of immense joy at no longer being alone and no longer having to hide my differences.
The only thing left after that was to make that diagnosis official. It took me a while to find someone locally knowledgeable enough about autism to provide such a diagnosis and to save up the money to afford to have it done privately, but after that I obtained official diagnoses for my oldest and youngest children who really needed it to get them the services they needed. It then took me another two years to work up the courage to be assessed myself, but I finally did that two years ago. My oldest child has recently been reassessed by Dr Tony Attwood and his diagnosis was changed from High Functioning Autism to Asperger's Syndrome, but as long as our diagnoses are on the Autistic Spectrum and my children are receiving appropriate services then I don't think what they choose to call it matters a great deal.
WS: How many children, age and so on...
CB: I have four children. The oldest, Christopher is 26 and lives in Queensland. Timothy is 25 and is getting married on October 25th this year. He lives with his fiancee only a short distance away from the rest of the family. Anthony is 22 and Helen is 11. They both currently live at home, although Anthony has only moved back home in the last 3 months. All of my boys have obtained their Higher School Certificates. Chris is planning on returning to University next year to complete his computer science degree and both Tim and Tony are in full-time employment. Tim works as a Tyre-Fitter and is a Lance Corporal in the Transport Division of the Army Reserve and Tony works for a fruit and vegetable wholesaler as a Delivery Driver. Helen is nearing the end of her Primary School years and will be starting high school next year. We have already started the process of transitioning her into high school and she is looking forward to it. She has no problems academically, although her behaviours are still identifiably autistic. However, she is very accepting of her differences and has excellent self-esteem, so I don't foresee too many problems for her going on to do exceptionally well at high school.
WS: Can you tell us something about your first experience with Internet?
CB: It was at the beginning of 1989, that Chris got his first computer account with the University. Almost immediately he started hounding me to buy a modem so he could connect from home. I was terrified of the idea since I knew already that Chris knew far too much about computers for his own good and that in combination with his wicked sense of mischief his request gave me visions of his being arrested for hacking, so to protect him from himself I said no. Always the clever one though he started bringing files home for me on diskette - messages from the sci.lang newsgroup which he knew I'd be interested in because of their Linguistic content and then having whetted my appetite he stopped doing it, claiming that he hadn't had time to download them, but saying to me "You can get your own computer account and do it yourself - you have more free time than me." So I went and applied for my own account, but once I had it without a modem I just couldn't spend the time online that I wanted to because the University's fluorescent lighting in the computer room made me feel ill if I spent more than a few minutes in there. There was nothing else to do but buy a modem and Chris was all too eager to find me a cheap second-hand one that I could afford. With my MacPlus and 1200 baud modem, I connected to the Internet from home for the first time in August, '89.
With a lot of Chris's help I became semi-computer literate in a short space
of time and found a number of newsgroups on Usenet I was interested in.
However, the noise to value ratio was extremely high and when I realised
that mailing lists existed for specific topics I signed onto a few of those
and discovered that this was a much better way of reading mail than through
a newsgroup. At that time I reduced my subscription to Usenet groups to
just two - misc.kids and sci.med - and permanently subscribed to the
Linguist list, Words-l and Newedu-l (Words-l is the only one I am still a
member of out of those early subscriptions). I lurked on Words-l for 12
months before I got up the courage to post anything and was immediately
welcomed into their fold as the only Aussie they had ever met online. They
nicknamed me Wombat (my address then was
I had been actively participating in Words-l discussions for 18 months when
I saw an announcement on the sci.med newsgroup about a new list being
formed called Autism. It was the first week of May, 1992 that I signed
onto that list. I read the posts for about a week before I worked up the
courage to ask my first question. If anyone is interested that first
message and all the subsequent ones can most likely still be found
amongst the archives for that list. If you are a member of the Autism list
then you can send GET AUTISM LOG9205 to WS: I've seen a lot of information on autism
on the Internet, what makes
the Internet so popular for people who are living with autism?
CB: Many autistic people seem to have an affinity with computers
and many of
them were already working in computer-related fields prior to the advent of
the Internet. The appeal of a computer is that there is only one right way
to tell it to do something - it doesn't misinterpret what you tell it and
do something else as people do. If a computer doesn't understand what you
mean it says "Syntax error" and doesn't assume it knows what you meant to
say.
The Internet is popular, I believe, because it provides a visual and
semi-permanent means of communicating. Often I have difficulty following
speech because my short-term memory is so poor and easily overloaded.
That's not a problem with email because if I forget what the person said
all I have to do is go back and read their message again. Another benefit
is that unless I tell someone online that I have language processing
problems they wouldn't suspect it.
For many of us this medium has given us the opportunity to be accepted for
the first time in our lives as being just like everyone else and gives us
our first hint at what it feels like to be accepted on the quality of our
thoughts rather than the quality of our speech. It also much easier for
most of us to communicate in writing than in speech, so many of us regard
this medium as being our most powerful way of communicating with others. I
have always been unable to think and talk at the same time, but for some
inexplicable reason I am able to think and type at the same time - so I can
express myself in written language more fluently and with a more precise
meaning and higher standard of language than would be possible for me ever
to do using spoken language. I have only ever been accepted as an
intelligent individual when that assessment was made on the basis of my
literacy skills. In other situations the only way I can appear intelligent
is to look interested and not say anything.
WS: How and when did you get the idea to do
something for autistic people
and parents with Internet?
CB: Wanting to be helpful to others has been a part of my nature
as far back as
I can remember. I don't know how much of this is self-motivated - I like
the feeling I get when I know I've been of help to others and they are
pleased with me and as a child I quickly learnt that if people were happy
then they were much more tolerant and less critical of me, so very early on
I discovered that by helping others I could make my own life more bearable.
However, humanitarian ideals seem to be common amongst the autistic people
I know so perhaps this is just part of the intrinsic nature of autism.
I don't think at any stage I ever thought of doing anything specific to
help other autistic people and parents on the Internet, it was something
that just happened. In open discussions on the Autism list with other
autistic people starting with my first post, we explored the common ground
between us. This was initially for our own benefit to rid ourselves of the
feelings that we were in some way weird and abnormal. Then it happened
that parents started telling us how helpful these discussions were in
giving them insight into the world of their children. It was difficult to
accept at first that our experiences could make even one other autistic
child's life a little better, but soon it became our prime motivation for
sharing our experiences and view of the world with others.
In those first two years on the Autism list, I must confess that helping
parents was not a priority for me. I was only concerned with helping
autistic individuals like myself or like the child I had been. I shared
the anger that others felt at the mistreatment and misunderstanding that is
directed towards people with autism, but gradually I came to realise that
that anger was a waste of my energy that could be directed towards
something more positive. The Autism list had become unbearable due to
conflicts between autistic individuals and parents and professionals. I
started fighting against that anger, imploring my fellow autistics to stop
the flames and in doing so was alienated from them. I again felt alone and
without friends. Then I started receiving private email from a few parents
asking me why I wasn't posting anymore and telling me how much they missed
my contributions. That was my turning point. I wanted to talk to others
but I couldn't handle all the negative emotions of the Autism list, so I
sent private email to all the parents on the Autism list and a few of the
autistic individuals and professionals who had not been involved in the
conflicts asking them to let me know if they'd like to receive my replies
to posts on the list by private email. I was astounded that 45 people
responded in the affirmative. One of those parents was Amy Parker, who
happened to not only be the parent of an autistic child but also the
Listserv Manager at her University. In her reply she offered the use of
her listserv to support a list if I wanted to create one. Amy and I then
set about organising it. Amy handled everything at her end and all I had
to do was decide on a name and work out what the aims of the list should be
and then supply her with a list of names and addresses of people to add
when she had it organised.
WS: When did you actually started the list?
Please tell us something about "THE
START".
CB: The list started officially on July 18, 1994. The first
three months were
extremely stressful for me. A few members carried some of their
antagonisms with others from the Autism list to PAN-L and wanted to use my
list to talk about them behind their backs or were taking posts from my
list and forwarding them to non-members which were then used to attack me
publicly on other lists. It was then that I introduced my first set of
acceptable behaviour rules for PAN-L. I received lots of criticism and
accusations of denying people their right to freedom of speech, but after I
polled the opinions of the whole list I discovered that the majority of
people supported me. So I stuck by my rules and subsequently deleted 4
members for breaking them and then after a few weeks when everyone had
gotten over the shock of what I'd done, things started to calm down and
PAN-L became the support group it was intended to be.
WS: With how many members did you start?
CB: There were 45 on day one, but within a week the number had
grown to over
60. There was no public announcement about the lists existence for a
number of months - until the members of Autism started requesting the
listowner of that list to start another one as a support group. It was
only then that I publicly announced that such a list already existed and
our numbers doubled almost overnight. Since then membership had been
acquired through referral from an existing member, until early 1996 when
my list became the focus of attention through my involvement in the 24
Hours in Cyberspace project and my name and address started appearing on
various websites as the listowner of an online autism-related support
group. It became a listowner's nightmare supplying information about my
list to all that applied so I then gave permission for members of PAN-L to
display more detailed information about PAN-L on their webpages.
WS: What kind of people where part of PAN-L
in those first days/months?
CB: Initially it was for anyone who wanted to belong. However,
most of the
professionals who subscribed initially left of their own accord when I
instigated the rule PAN-L was for personal and emotional support and that
posts containing general information were considered inappropriate. When
the last of these left it was decided that the list would be confined to
people who live with autism. This means that any relative or friend of a
person with an autism-related disorder or autistic individual is welcome to
join, but since the list has nothing to offer anyone who's interest is only
at a professional level, I refer those applicants to one of the many other
lists that exist today.
WS: Today there are already about 300
members from different countries, but
most of them are from the US, the second group are Australian and
after that there are some European members. Why, do you think, are there
so many from the States in relation to the other countries?
There are almost 400 members now. The majority of them are from the US
mainly because they are more technologically advanced than other countries
ie a higher proportion of their population which is significantly higher
than most populations have had access to the Internet for many more years
than other countries have had. In Australia, public access to the Internet
has really only started to happen in the last 3 years. Prior to that the
only people that had access were those connected to Universities,
international companies or computer enthusiasts who organised their own
feed through one of the few existing connections.
WS: What makes PAN-L unique in relation to
the other Autism-lists like for
example St. Johns?
CB: PAN-L is unique among the autism-related lists because it is
the only one
that exclusively targets the emotional well-being of its members as its
priority. On the other lists information is considered the most important
component. But on PAN-L we are real people trying to find real solutions
to very real problems so we try to tap into the collective personal
experience of members to try to find solutions that haven't been written
into the textbooks yet. It also serves the purpose of bringing together
people in similar situations who understand the joys and heartaches that
other members are experiencing. It's also a private and confidential list,
so even the most intimate subjects can be discussed without fear or
embarrassment. PAN-L keeps all of us from feeling alone and isolated from
the rest of society and gives us the energy to face another day of living
with autism. There's also time to laugh and have fun with friends on a
daily basis and if any member is in need of a friend to talk to or share
their feelings with no matter what time of the day or night, there is
someone online on PAN-L somewhere in the world who is willing to listen and
empathise with them.
WS: You spoke about sharing feelings. How
can people share feelings via a
keyboard, PC and modem?
CB: It's actually a lot easier to do for most people than doing
it in a
real-life situation. In a real-life situation we rarely get to say what we
really feel because of concerns about how it will be perceived by the other
person. If something has happened that has made you angry, who do you
tell? Your spouse and then have them share your anger and possibly destroy
their sense of well-being as well or do you tell a friend on the other side
of the world who you know won't be personally upset by it but will
understand why you are angry and allow you to vent all your negative
feelings without criticising you for having them. Or if your child has
done something for the first time and you are overjoyed at his
accomplishment - who do you tell? Your neighbour who will say "My Johnny
could do that when he was 2" or do you tell your online friends who know
from their own experience what a wonderful accomplishment this is for an
autistic child of his tender years and who not only offer congratulations
and share your feelings of joy but it gives them hope that one day their
child might do it too.
WS: Sharing feelings between people of so
many different cultures seems to
be difficult. What is your opinion on this?
CB: The feelings we have are the result of being human beings
and they know no
cultural boundaries. The language we express those feelings in may be
different but the feelings are the same. People are born into a particular
culture - they are not born having that culture. So we are all human
beings first and it is on that level we interact on PAN-L and I have not
seen any evidence of cultural differences in the way a parent loves their
child or gets angry when someone hurts them or gets depressed when it seems
all hope is gone.
WS: Your list is shared by parents of
autistic children and autistic
people, what do you think about this combination?
CB: On other lists I've seen what I call the 'us and them' mind
set. If someone
is autistic then parents think they can't possibly appreciate what it's
like to be a parent and if someone is a parent then the autistic person
thinks they can't possibly understand what it's like to be autistic and in
this way they create an artificial division between the two groups. In my
opinion such attitudes serve no purpose. On PAN-L every member is there
for a single purpose - to help an autistic child whether that child is
their own or someone else's. There are no divisions - we are just people
trying to help other people in the way we know best. I was once asked by a
new member "Who are the autistic people on the list?" My response was "Why
do you need to know? Isn't everyone's experience of equal value and
entitled to be related so you can judge which is the most valuable to you?"
WS: At st. Johns for example you see many
discussions about technical
matters, politics, medicine which often causes flames. How do you prevent
your list from flames?
CB: I made it a rule that if anyone was guilty of flaming I
would delete them
from the list. That no-one has broken that rule in the past 3 years is an
indication of the importance members place on their membership of PAN-L.
WS: Why is PAN-L a private list?
CB: There are things we discuss on PAN-L that we wouldn't want
the whole world
to know about us - intimate details that would cause embarrassment or worse
if they became public knowledge. The list is kept private to protect our
privacy and the rules regarding confidentiality ensure that we can discuss
sensitive or intimate topics without any reservations.
WS: When the reader wants to join PAN-L, how
can he/she join?
CB: A brief email message of introduction sent to me at
I use that message to introduce the new member to the list and subscribe
them to the list immediately if they have provided sufficient information to
show they meet the criteria of living with autism.
WS: Are you involved in other activities on
the Internet besides PAN-L?
CB: I am the listowner of the Australian Autism list (OzAutism)
which is open
to any Australian or New Zealand resident or national living overseas. It
is for discussion of local issues pertaining to people with developmental
delays.
I recently created a subsidiary list to PAN-L, called PAN. Membership of
PAN is restricted to past and present members of PAN-L. I created PAN so
that members of PAN-L would be able to continue the friendships they'd made
on PAN-L in a forum for general discussion and personal support. PAN is
intended to meet the intellectual needs of its members whereas PAN-L
addresses their emotional needs. It was necessary to do this because of
the increasing daily number of posts to PAN-L creating problems for those
who were only interested in giving and receiving emotional support.
I currently belong to 5 other lists - Autism list; Autinet; Thyroid list;
Celiac list and Words-l. I still contribute to Words-l discussions on
occasions and I recently deputized for the listowner of Autinet while he
was on vacation but the other lists fall into the category of read-only.
WS: What does PAN-L personally mean to you
(besides all the work....)?
CB: At the end of the message I send to new members I sign off
"Welcome to my
world!" and that is what PAN-L is - not the world, but my world - a world
full of people who genuinely care about others and where greed and
selfishness have no part to play.
As a child I often asked the question "Why can't people just love each
other, instead of fighting all the time?" and was told that it would be
good if the world could be like that but people just weren't made that way.
I have never agreed with or accepted that idea so in a way PAN-L has been
an experiment in proving that people from all different cultures can learn
to live together in peace and harmony and after the success of PAN-L I even
more firmly believe that we can ultimately achieve a much better world than
the one we currently live in.
WS: Do you think that a PC, modem and
Internet account can help autistic
people communicate in a better way? And why?
CB: I would say it helps them communicate in a much easier way,
so in that way
I think it's better. The inherent speech problems associated with autism
can be insurmountable in real-life situations but email provides the
opportunity to interact socially in a spontaneous manner that is denied to
many autistic people otherwise.
WS: Don't you think it's better to have
*real* contacts with people living
with autism instead of via your monitor?
CB: It is probably more difficult for an autistic adult to make
friends with
another autistic adult in real-life than it is for an autistic person to
make friends with an ordinary person. The latter we can learn to do,
because we educate ourselves to what other people's social expectations are
of us. But when two autistic people meet they don't know what to expect of
each other so their friendship may never get past the first "Hello" because
of the doubling of the fear of saying the wrong thing and upsetting the
other person. For two autistic people to become friends it takes a third
person to act as catalyst in many cases. My friendship with Angela who is
also high-functioning autistic, was precipitated by her husband. I had met
Angela a number of times before and although we both desired to meet and
talk to each other, neither one of us could bring ourselves to make the
first move in establishing contact for fear that we would be imposing our
friendship on the other. So it wasn't until her husband phoned me and said
"Angela needs your help" that we connected as one autistic person to
another. Of course since then we have been the best of friends.
Autistic people I have made contact with initially through email and have
subsequently met in real-life I haven't experienced any kind of hesitation
in initiating a conversation with.
WS: How do you see the future of PAN-L?
CB: I don't think much about the future - I just take each day
as it comes. My
daughter has already requested that I leave her PAN-L in my will, so
perhaps it will go on serving its members for many more years to come. As
long as I'm able and as long as it continues to provide the support that
people living with autism need then I will continue to maintain it as I
have been doing for the past 3 and a quarter years. No doubt the
membership will increase substantially over time and it may become
necessary to add more 'rooms' to the list as I did with PAN but I don't see
the 'house of PAN-L' ever becoming less than it is at the moment and I'm
sure that the spirit of PAN-L will live on even past the end of my lifetime.
WS: Is there a limit to the number of
members?
CB: No! The disk capacity at our present site is quite limited
but when it can
no longer cope then I will move the list elsewhere to a site that does have
the capacity to handle it.
WS: So there is a possibility for some Dutch
people to join?
CB: Most definitely! The European contingent of PAN-L is
extremely out of
proportion to the rest of PAN-L's population and as good as it is to have
friends all around the world, it is more important to have a few closer to
home that you can call on for help. Apart from that there have already
been quite a few PAN-L real-life social activities in the US and one here
in Australia. It is such fun to meet the people face-to-face that you know
so well online and my hope is that these will become a regular occurrence
and that all members will have the opportunity to enjoy such get-togethers
in their own countries.
WS: Many, many, many thanks!!!!!!!!!!
CB: Yay! I got to the end of it. ;-) Any more questions?
Publication of this article is only allowed with permission of the editor
and writer which can be obtained by emailing to Wouter Schenk
This page is created on 8th of January 1998.
See you again!
COLOFON:
Interview: Wouter Schenk, Tegelen,
The Netherlands.
Editor: Ray Kopp, New York, USA.
Lay-Out: Ray Kopp and Wouter Schenk.