Hi Billie, I searched the Wayback Machine
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.freerepublic.com some time ago for FR and they show a link from
Dec. 21, 1996. Quite frankly, I don't remember FR looking like that, and it does show a link entitled "Forum" but it doesn't work.
Did you save any of the old articles from those days? Have you kept in contact with some of the people from back then? I was telling Dolly I would have to go back and search some of my old hard drive backups from those days to see if I saved any of them. I'll check some of them tomorrow. I wasn't thinking of FR becoming the Giant that it is today or I would have been saving all kinds of stuff. I certainly would have saved the ones I commented on. It would be interesting to see what I was saying back in those days.
JimRob is really to be commended for sticking to it all these years against some pretty stiff odds. Lawsuits, threats. I don't think I would have had the guts to do it. If I wore a hat it would be off to him.
Thanks for verifying that I wasn't going crazy and that my memory of FR of '96 is not a total washout. (OK, alright, maybe I am going a little crazy...smile)
Thanks for verifying that I wasn't going crazy and that my memory of FR of '96 is not a total washout. (OK, alright, maybe I am going a little crazy...smile)LOL. You're not going crazy. I was using AOL political boards a lot in '96, and there was one poster there(forgot who it was) who used to link or bring articles posted at FR to the AOL boards all the time - of course it didn't sway any of the die-hard lefties our way, but several of us tried.
Eventually, I wandered over to FR myself, and remember names such as Deb, Phil V, a Bob or two, Norm (firehat), Jim of course, and more, and of course the infamous Eschoir.
I didn't save any of the early threads where I lurked, but my earliest recollections were at the end of 1996, and actually, gooleyman, it looks like it would certainly be categorized as a *forum* if there were people posting comments, but for whatever reason, I did get the information for the history of FR from an old article about JimRob.
I don't remember FR ever *looking* like that link either. Wish I'd saved some of the early Whitewater threads.