Dear Humble gunner,
I started with FR back in the days of DITHF.
My computer crapped out and I forgot my password, so I created a new account.
Not surprising that someone would have a different start date.
I arrived at Free Republic on Bush v. Gore election night in November 2000.
I had my original FR account on auto-sign-in for four years.
I bought a new Dell and sent my old computer back to Dell for recycling.
The next time I tried to log in to FR, it rejected my usual low risk password, and I had to start over as a Newbie.
Poof - four years of Seniority disappeared.
I was not a FR pioneer, but I would have been here on Day One if I had known about it!