With this drawing begins my not very extensive career as a professional magazine illustrator. I have one client, and one only, a magazine from the Pacific northwest called Ruralite. It was free to the consumers of an electrical co-op, so reached the deceptively enormous circulation of a quarter million readers. (Several times the circulation, say, of Analog.) I'm a bit unsure how I got started after 25 years, but I think Joshua Quagmire may have passed my name on to the assistant editor at Ruralite. If so, he probably didn't want the job himself. Yet I found it to be a rather sweet deal. The first jobs I did were paid only about $75, but by the end of my 60 illo streak I was making up to $150 each. This was 25 years ago, too, before adjustments for inflation and the exchange rate between the U.S. and Canadian dollar. As well as being well paid, I kept the original art.

Over the few years I worked for Ruralite I also made friends with the assistant editor, Walt Wentz. He was an interesting, older man who had once been a Forest Service Fire Watcher. He said he found the life living in a tower over the forest to be a contented one, if somewhat lonely. When he finally married he had to move to the relatively more urban landscape of the outskirts of Eugene Oregon, and hold down a "real" job. Hence his employment at Ruralite.

Walt didn't entirely get along with his bosses though, and when the editor in chief was finally replace by an even less agreeable boss, it was time to retire. It also marked the end of my career as a magazine illustrator, such as it was. The new editor didn't like illustrations. He thought photos were more slick. While my association with Ruralite came to an end, by friendship with Walt continues to this day.

The very first illustration I did for Ruralite was in the nature of a test. It wasn't much of an article I was given, about a man whose granfather barbered his hair when he was a kid. But evidently it was amusing enough that I got another trial run, and was then a regular contributor to the magazine.

Of the 60 drawings I did all together, I've chosen around half, to post here. You'll have to forgive the somewhat small file sizes. I have larger tiffs, but those were *too* big. Should you wish printable files or images of a size large enough to view in detail, you'll have to wait for the CD-Rom!