We have started up two e-mailing lists at the Clubhouse and are linked to a third. If you go to the main page and click on the handshake icon, you will find all the information you need to subscribe to them.

Someone has written to one of the lists saying he is new to all this and is still not quite sure what a list actually is. I didn't know either a few months ago, but I have begun now to understand.

Lists reflect a community of interest(s) in which interested parties can share infor- mation or connect with each other (1) by means of Internet bulletin boards where they surf in to make postings and read the postings of others, or (2)by means of e-mail which is delivered to the In-Box so they may post back to the "list" of subscribers by mail rather than at a Web site.

A list can be a sort of party in cyberspace whereby people talk frivolously as they do at a cocktail party or about more serious things like zeroing in on a likely candidate with whom to party in private, as they do in a bar or social situation. It can be a "block" party in which all the "neighbors" have a jolly time together in public by posting comments to the list, or it can be a more intimate meeting between two subscribers who "find" each other on the list and form a relationship. It can also be a forum for the sharing of ideas on any subject relating to interests common to all its subscribers.

The "matureman" list is essentially a meeting place in cyberspace for older men who find their emotional and/or intellectual fulfillment in each other and want to share their joys, sorrows, problems and achievements in common. I think of it as a Silverfoxes Den in my Clubhouse where older types can sit and ruminate together the way men used to "retire" sedately to the study to chat, drink brandy and smoke cigars a generation or two ago.

This conjures up an image to me of our other list, matureman2, as the Billiard Room where older and younger men are shooting pool and grooving on each other.

Bulletin-board posting (going to a Web site and typing in remarks where other visitors may read them and perhaps respond in a posting of their own) was quite popular before e-mail became the great force it has grown to be in the last year. We have a Silverfoxes Forum (Bulletin Board) at the Clubhouse where people can post in this way. I like that style very much and encourage people to do it. That kind of posting is very popular with car enthusiasts, for example, and such bulletin boards become a repository, an archive, of useful information.

Some people, however, LOVE getting e-mail. I guess most people do. I was at one time what was called a "troop-information" NCO (non-commissioned officer) in the United States Army, and my job included supervision of "mail-call." I still carry with me a mental image of disappointed faces among the guys who didn't get a letter. Such an emptiness of the heart when almost everyone around you is running off to read a handful of mail, and you amble off with your hands in your pockets and dropping shoulders because nobody "loves" you today! Hell, getting a dunning notice from a bill collector was better than nothing in those days.

It can be equally depressing not to find an e-mail in your In-Box today. So subscribe to one of our lists and GET MAIL!