429. Lifetime Achievement Letterboxing Award:
(Last of the LbNA "LA-LA's": 2010 - 2011)

Well, we hadn't really planned on giving out any more LA-LA's after the first ten years or so of letterboxing in North America. We hadn't really been following much in the way of the newer trends, developments or people in the hobby, didn't know if there was any interest nowadays in the "older legends" of our letterboxing history, and had somewhat "retired" from the letterboxing scene ourselves, after reaching 30,000 traditional finds by 2011. However, with just a little bit of encouragement from newer folks still interested in North American letterboxing history and some of its most significant contributors, and just in time to coincide with that other "Oscar Time", here's one last LA-LA!

First of all, let us say right up front that we now choose to list this letterbox as a "traditional find", since anyone who has not already earned it and had it handed to them personally by us in the past few years will now have to search for it just like any other "traditional box" (and certainly if boxes asked for from employees behind counters in stores, stuck on people's cars, hung on trees in people's yards and other such gimmicks are now being listed as "traditional finds", surely we have the prerogative to list this box as a "traditional find", too! ;-)

That being said, all other prerequisites for obtaining this box remain basically about the same: a minimum of 5 years dedicated to fostering and promoting the hobby of letterboxing in North America, with a minimum of 100 "traditional plants" and 500 "traditional finds", which, of course, in the first half dozen or so ("pre-Atlas Quest") years were just about the only type of boxes we had! Of course, back in those early years, that goal might have seemed almost unattainable, since there were scarcely that many boxes in the entire country, which is why it seemed so important to us to honor those first few great-hearted folks who really set the table for future development in letterboxing by providing a bounty well above the average of what might have been reasonably expected or even imagined back then! So, if you don't know who these "true legends" of our North American letterboxing heritage are, please feel free to go back now before proceeding with this final year's account to read the previous four or five years' worth of our "LA-LA" letterboxing history!

Nowadays, naturally, there is such an abundance of letterboxes that some folks who set their minds to it could easily do 500 boxes in a single month without ever even having to go more than 500 miles from their homes! (We have certainly done that quite a few times in our travels around the country in recent years, and have even done a few "100+ traditional-find non-gathering letterbox days"!;-) So, the "finding" aspect of letterboxing no longer carries anywhere near as much weight as it did back in those early years of few and widely spaced singular boxes. Even the planting of 100 boxes no longer seems anywhere near as remarkable as it did in the first dozen years of our hobby's development, and might also now be accomplished in a single month for a gathering or something, rather than representing years of carefully planned and spread out individual work. However, the fact remains that sticking around in the hobby for over 5 years, finding over 500 and planting over 100 traditional letterboxes is still a major accomplishment, so we wish to continue to honor those who have achieved that special distinction, at least through this year!

Those who have been following the "LA-LA" for the last few years (or have gone back to read those previous accounts) will know that we like to compare the development of our letterboxing in a sort of tongue-in-cheek broad sweep to go along with American history. We started out with those first few special "forefathers" and "mothers" who planted over 100 boxes to get the hobby really going on this side of the pond, added in the "explorers" who traversed the country and "revolutionized" the hobby to make it distinctly North American, then watched as "regionalization" and "urban development" took over in some parts of the country to make it seem to us that letterboxing, instead of featuring active exploration, was taking on a more passive stamp entertainment role with a carnival atmosphere reminiscent of a late 19th century Barnum and Bailey circus coming to town!

So, what do we make of the time period for celebrating "LA-LA" 2010-11, for those who became active in letterboxing starting around 2005? Well, we will just have to call it "Party Time", since it reminds us so much of that period in American History called "The Roaring Twenties", with its frenetic stamping and stomping of the "flapper-boxer" crowd, the "how many boxes can we squeeze into one telephone booth?" party-type gathering gags, and the hush-hush "speak-easy" quality of some of those "private parties"! Yes, this was not only the "pub-crawl" heyday of a certain small sub-set of letterboxers, but also the time for a handful of letterboxing "gangsters" to emerge - not in the sense of their meaning to do harm to others, of course, but rather in the sense of people forming select little regional "gangs", complete with "knock-knocks" and "secret handshakes"! And of course, during those years, some wild stamp parties abounded, costumed or otherwise!

So, what helped push letterboxing into gathering all that crazy "Roaring Twenties" momentum? Why, the coming of age of that new site called Atlas Quest, of course! What had been a rather quiet little cluster of far-flung letterboxing "villages" organized by counties, with a few occasional get-togethers, seemed to rapidly become a vast network of interconnected stamp sharing communities and THE place to go to find out where the next stamp party was going to be! At one time someone at AQ even made a statement to the effect that stamps were the "heart of letterboxing", which we "old-timers" totally disagreed with, since we had always felt that "the hunt" was the essence of letterboxing and that stamps were just a nice additional feature to the hobby. So, at first we actively opposed those parties that made no bones about being primarily for collecting stamps, but relented when folks started to make at least some effort to include letterboxing!:-)

What we haven't relented on, however, is our conception, in tune with that of our early "letterboxing forefathers", that most letterbox plants should be free and open to all without restrictions, but that finds should be kept secret so that no one knows who has been to any particular box unless they actually go there themselves. This aspect of letterboxing - the "not knowing" - was a huge part of the fun of the first half dozen or so years of letterboxing, and we strongly regret that Atlas Quest has so changed the tenor of our hobby by enabling people to make their finds "public as a frog" and to vie for attention, like the next star of "Chicago", with bells, whistles, stars, and feathers in their caps! And speaking of feathers, who would have guessed that our idea from way back in 2001 to have anyone who solved one of our early mysteries ("One More Little Feather"), did the hike to see if they could find the box, and only then earned the privilege of drawing in their own type of hat to go with the feather stamp that lived in the box - would so much later, get "copy-catted" to serve as the symbol for those folks who get their hats "ready made on-line" for doing nothing more than giving money to someone using the letterbox-creating efforts of others to turn a fast buck! (Ah, once again it seems that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but what a "cheap take" on our original intent! ;-)

Anyway, now that we've set the basic mood of the times, from dark "speak-easy dens" to tightly packed party crowds with many showy hats and flashy feathers, how did all that stamp partying get started? Well, the first time we ever remember becoming really aware of it was at the first Desperately Seeking Sun event hosted by that original "Party Girl" herself - Lock Wench of NY, who hereby becomes our first "LA-LA" honoree of 2010! That event was the first time we ever saw such things as cooties, multiple personal travelers, and so many indoor stamps tucked around everywhere that we were quite overwhelmed, and left the party to go out letterboxing in the snow till well into the night - just to breathe and chill out!;-)

Soon, of course, there were bound to be followers, and some of the next ones then living nearby turned out to be Wes and party pig! When we finally got back out to NY to look for their boxes, it turns out that they had skipped town with all their boxes stashed in the trunk of their car! We heard later that they were down in VA slipping those stamps out for secret sips from their "bootleg stash", so we didn't think those should count as "bona fide" boxing plants or finds. However, we've since heard that they've redeemed themselves with quite a few actual new plants in VA, so we'll cut them some slack and put them up for the "LA-LA" this year as well! Cheers, guys!

Another guy we first met in NY at DSS 2005 was a gangly young fellow from NH called Dave. At the time, we found his "Gingerbread Jim" character to be rather amusing...until suddenly he took on a raving "Madman" persona instead! Hopefully he is well past that stage by now, so we'd like to acknowledge him for his actual contributions to NH letterboxing (not that proliferation of cooties he seems to think he engendered, but for which we'd be more apt to nominate Celtic Quinn of NY!;-) Meanwhile back in the next state over to the east, Maine Kokopellian was carving out his own particular niche by throwing flamboyant Halloween parties. We have no idea how many of his boxes may have actually stuck around for the general boxing public, but he did create some "ephemeral extravaganzas", as did fellow NH/ME area residents like gollygee, littlmoon, mudflinginfools, Teacup, Happy Daze and others in more recent years, along with their many "permanent plants" to boot!

During this same time period, Massachusetts, too, seems to have hit the "celebration jackpot"! First up, we'll mention the Merry Pranksters for the several repeat performances of their Grateful Gatherings and hundreds of Andover area boxes! (We laugh now about getting "spaced out" just going to the same places "over-And-over"!;-) Just to the east, Lundy and Vickster established their territory, with Dale End Farm just off to the west in the Sudbury area, zess and Mim covering trails just a bit further southwest, and due south Ellen of the Travelers 4, perhaps best known for taking over the O Letterbox Tree gathering from Archimedes' Screw and setting up quite the holiday stamping party in her landlord's backyard!

Connecticut continued to hold its own letterbox-wise with folks like Bandaid and Trailhead Tessie to the southwest and Travel'n Turtle moving in recently from Ohio to fill in the gap left by folks "retiring" to the northeast. Ohio also had Pioneer Spirit planting during this time, while New York had a fine planting contingent represented by Sahalie, Suzietoots, Eiryn, Turtle Run, Wyvern and others. Further south our memories get hazier for approximate starting dates and box plant numbers, but we should probably include Gallant Rogue and EllBee of VA; Dixie, the Little Foxes, the flory family and airstream dreams for NC; T Rex for GA; and Hale's Angel and mstrwndl for TN.

Sorry to say we really don't know that much about what was happening in the Midwest during these years. After we had gotten our "token boxes" in those states, we pretty much always just blew through on our way westward, but we'll be glad to add in the names of anyone meeting the "LA-LA" qualifications. For this time period, however, we are glad to be able to say from personal experience that Texas was still going strong due to adding "LA-LA-worthy" folks like Boots Tex, Lone Star Quilter and jb kokopelli to its already quite booming boxing status. Colorado meanwhile came to include Front Range Hiker and Tai Chi and Chai Tea; Oregon added folks like Team Springamajack, Marmalade and Murray Herd, while Washington got Buppsters and Gryffindors. And finally for now, we would like to present hearty "Oscar cheers" to deniserows of Alaska, Kelsung of California and lionsmane of New Mexico, each of whom has contributed magnificently to the grand expansive spirit of North American letterboxing!

And so, the party continues...some folks now concentrating more on the carving, some reviving the "thrill of the hunt", some mostly enjoying just the partying itself, and most managing to combine various aspects of the hobby in varying degrees as the spirit moves them. We truly hope that after this so-called "Roaring Twenties" period, North American letterboxing does not undergo a Great Depression, but continues to go along on its traditional path, bringing joy to many with its sweet simple gift of taking folks out on adventures and possibly finding stamps to mark those occasions. We certainly know of many people within recent times who have greatly contributed to this tradition, some even planting over 100 boxes out on some wonderful trails in just a few months of their starting out in the hobby! We are indeed sorry that we cannot mention them all here at this time, but after they have put in their 5 years, they and anyone else who has already earned "lifetime achievement" letterboxing status are welcome to stop by in RI, or wherever else we may happen to be, for as long as we're around, to get the "LA-LA clue", or to try to catch us while we have "Lil' Oscar" on the road! And, as usual, if there's anyone else eligible that we've forgotten to induct into "LA-LA land", please let us know! Cheers and best wishes to you all!!!

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