Maybe we can devote a thread to this member, not just the content he shares. Like a sort of about Clark. Who is this guy, what drives him to share so much with the forum users and maybe people know personal stories about this guy. Is he a retired librarian or what?
I am continually impressed with the amount of posts and organizational effort he contributed to this forum. I want to give a big thanks and appreciation to this guy Clark. Maybe others would also like to add some thanks or criticism/sarcasm/ to him in this thread.
I count Clark as a friend, even though I’ve never met him in person. I think he’s just a very generous and passionate person who loves the community of sharing we have here. Where he gets the energy I don’t know!
Personally he has stimulated my interest in Pears… and even peaches.
I reflect on a post he did 6 years ago which also had incredible drought and heat (which i think alot of us have suffered this year and possibly in the future).
Clark inspires me. I enjoy his passion and zest for knowledge and even more that he takes the time, and affords the effort to share that with us.
This was/is his introduction-
I’ve grown fruit all my life as did my parents, their parents, their parents parents etc…did. I’m 1/16 Cherokee so I have a lot of knowledge about growing, breeding, and preserving fruits and vegetables. With all that said I would point out I’m an amateur to modern agricultural techniques. I do have extended family that are professional growers. Though my skin is whiter than the background on the page , my family and I have hundreds of years of experience growing no spray fruits such as pawpaw, persimmon, blackberry, mulberry, gooseberries, raspberries, wild cherry etc. . Some of my first memories were in the garden with my family members growing vegetables and picking grapes. I planted my first green beans at 2 years old. I feel fortunate to be a member of this forum and others like it that share my enthusiasm and interest for growing fruits and vegetables. I’m an avid believer in self sufficiency.
Zone: 6A
Agreed that Clark is a huge asset to this forum on many levels. I too have dug up a lot of content from years ago with Clark being a main contributor of experience and knowledge. We have quite a few of these leaders on the forum that seem to be very well informed and have the answers or the information we need when we need it. I would like to personally thank every forum member and particularly these leaders for all the time and content made available to others for the sake of fruit (and veggies). Not sure I’d be where I’m at right now without the guidance of others like Clark, Scott, Tippy, Darrel, Drew, Alan, Richard, Trev, and many, many others that share a lot of content and expierience with the forum on a regular basis.
Scott didn’t build it. We had a great group on gardenweb before it ever migrated here. Scott’s politicization of the group – and you’ve certainly played a part – is the reason I don’t hardly take part any more.
I believe you believe that as well. I have always highly valued your fruit growing posts. Like everything in life there is a time and place for everything. I keep some things seperate from the forum. I do that out of respect for others. If it is any consolation i like and respect you for being you and would love to see you post more about fruit and veggies!
One of my life wishes is to see fusion power become a reality. Many years ago, in the internet dark ages of 1998, I wanted to join a streaming chat community “wbs.net”. When I tried to enter an ID to join, every ID I tried was already taken. Racking my brains to come up with something unique, I thought about using “Fusion_power” which happened to be available. I’ve used it on many other forums since.
Yes I have a weird sense of humor. I’m also a bit strange but not Dr. Strange level strange.
I did not know you were a computer admin but had guessed you were in a tech job of some sort. I spent a lot of years as an engineer and before that installing telephone offices.
Thank you again for the compliment and your many contributions to helping so many people on this forum. I taught computer server administration, programming , security, development ,networking etc. for 8 years and am now a computer administrator again where i mostly keep to myself patching computers and keeping everyones computers safe behind the scenes. I spent years as an admin before that doing computer work for the nursing community. I was in charge of coding much of the medical disaster recovery, security, networking, server management and web page design, scripting, programming, automation etc. . It is a lot of stress if people can literally die if you make a mistake. Thankfully i didn’t since everything now is electronic. If i did make a mistake and the disaster recovery did not work or programs i wrote didnt work it could have devastating consequences. Im told a program i wrote over 20 years ago is still happily running with no human intervention. The bad thing is noone they hired to this day has ever been able to understand the code and it is unlikely they will in the future. I wrote it in multiple languages passing code back and forth to accomplish the desired results. There are many people that can program better than me but none who will work at reasonable wages. A person must understand both programming and computers to be good at what i do. Most people could do it though choose not to go to that much school and then have a highly stressful job. Im a humble person making a living doing what no one else wants to might be the best way to say it.
One of my subtitles was programmer. My last great contribution to the company I work for was writing a program to analyze performance of a huge telecommunications network and report problems before they could cause disruptions. It is a program that took literally every bit of experience and system knowledge I have to implement. Is it effective? It is so effective that the sales team watch the results like a hawk because when it says something is about to burp, they get to earn their living.
I also consider Clark as a friend although we have never met in person. We are lucky to have a moderator with his vast knowledge and ability to give advice as well as knowing when to deal with some posts that might be heading in the wrong direction. If I lived near him he would hide when he saw me coming. I would be picking his brain on how to do a better job growing fruit. Best wishes to you Clark. You’re the best.
I find that to be an odd statement, as the “no politics” rule on here seems to be aggressively enforced. It seems pretty equally enforced against all types of viewpoints, even.
I guess a prohibition on politics is itself a kind of politicization (i.e., it allows people with unpopular political viewpoints to remain a part of the community when maybe they would otherwise be shunned). But still I wouldn’t generally call that politicization.
I ditto all the complimentary remarks about clarkinks. I always enjoy reading his comments and photos about his fruit growing experiences. He also peaked my interest in growing pears.
