Speaking of finding 3000 boxes so far just in CT - that reminds me that there
must now be an awful lot of people out there reaching high PFX counts, and
some who perhaps don't even yet know about the "PFX 500 Club" we started
on a whim a few years back when there were probably not a great deal more
than 500 boxes in the whole country! (see message #7772 that goes along
with the PFX Club listing on our webpage at http://alum.wpi.edu/~p_miner/
Letterboxes.html) Back then it required a major effort to collect that many
finds, and I remember getting seriously sneered at just for suggesting that this
might be a nice goal for people to strive for! Now probably no one involved in
the hobby would consider that goal unreasonable or "elitist". For the past year
I've been averaging 1000 finds every 4 months, and a few other folks have
also been reaching counts of 500 in just a matter of several months. In fact, I
think that even many folks who only box occasionally would still be amazed at
how quickly the numbers add up nowadays, especially when you take into
account that you get credit for planting - like our master planters Jay Drew and
Carolyn Stearns from the "early days" - as well as for meeting people and
doing exchanges with them at gatherings and such. What could be simpler
and more fun? Just keep a running count of boxes as you find them, along
with the number of boxes you've planted and the number of exchanges you've
made, and when your combined total reaches 500, send us the date on which
you attained that goal and we will be glad to add your name to the list! Of
course, if you want to keep track of just your F's (or P's or X's), we'll be glad to
accommodate that, too! Same goes for reaching PFX 1000, 2500, etc. Just let
us know through personal e-mail, since we would probably not find out
otherwise. We don't usually have time to look at talk lists, and don't always
know what's going on in other parts of the country, so we think it will be great
fun to see when folks in other states start hitting PFX 500, too! We already
have quite a few members from southern New England, of course, and a few
from the Pacific Northwest, but we just found out that the first person we know
of to reach PFX 500 from outside these two areas was Scarab of the Doubtful
Guests from VA, who reached this goal at the Monster Mash in CT on Oct, 2,
2004. Please let us know if there are any more of you out there. We expect
that there are now a lot more names to be added of folks from CT, but we're
also hoping to start seeing names of people from OH, PA, CA, MI, WI, NY, MD
and many other states soon, too! Of course, if you don't want to keep count,
that's fine, too, but if one of the reasons some people might have for wanting
to make it appear that keeping count were somehow "beneath them" was
actually based on some secret underlying anxiety that their count might not be
as high as they might wish it to be, I would say, "go ahead and do the count
anyway, and you might find that your count is actually higher than you
expected, rather than lower! So, be brave, be bold; get out there and box, then
count it all up to experience and send us your results! We love to see people
striving to reach goals, and hope to welcome many new members!

Wanda and Pete



!P.S. Does anyone know whatever happened with the F500 box that Randy
started a couple of years ago? We tried to get it going as a photo album of the
first couple dozen or so folks to reach F500, but haven't heard anything about
it now for over a year. Is it still circulating?

P.P.S, We were also wondering if anyone out there might be interested in
starting a PFX 500 box, which could go through all the members on our list in
order and then be waiting as just a little extra bit of incentive to send on to the
next person to reach that goal. Anyone feel like doing a carving for that?