Patricia Fels has been advising the Octagon for donkey’s years – her first issue was published in September 1977! Thus she remembers the days of setting headlines in the darkroom, rolling hot wax on the back of copy, and driving flats to the printer around 3 a.m. (Unfortunately, her current staffers are not in the least impressed by these stories!). But the milestone she recalls most vividly is when the first computers arrived in the journalism room (affectionately known as The Cave for many years). Two small Apple Macs and a Laserprinter were donated by a generous parent – for a total of $8,000 – in 1987. (Along with that equipment came the ludicrous promise that computers would save her so much time!) Fels will reach another milestone at the end of this year when she retires. She hasn’t yet decided whether or not that’s a good idea. But she is looking forward to worrying about something else – family? friends? the state of the world? – when she awakens in the middle of the night.
