As a former longtime AOL subscriber, I was sad to hear that AOL is pulling the plug on AOL Hometown.

Back in the mid-90s, when I started investigating this Web stuff, AOL Hometown was a playgroud where I could experiment with posting Web pages and storing images I wanted to share with other people.

Just to be sure I didn't have anything stored that I wanted to keep, earlier in the week I went through all my Hometown directories, which still exist, and found some interesting discoveries.

Speedo Dan
http://hometown.aol.com/treehouser/speedodan.html

Speedo Dan was still there. This page I created for a friend who was playing a prank on her friend (pictured). Notice the "Last Edited" date of 4/5/96! (Remember having to post "last edited" dates on pages to prove they were current?)

Photos from my 2000 trip to Denver, Colorado

I had thought these had been lost in a hard drive crash a few yesrs ago, but at least I still have these smaller versions.

Photos of me with my puppies

I also thought these had been lost in the same hard drive crash mentioned above. I still have the black and brown dog, but her white and brown sister was stolen by a former roommate several years ago. I never was able to track down where he took her or where she might be now.

So it is with these memories recollected onto my hard drives that I bid farewell to AOL Hometown, my old friend.