Since I'm now receiving BP in Digest mode (necessary as I could no longer
deal with the message traffic) I see everything at once,some of it more
than once when you use the 'reply' button. 

Duck tape: I was intrigued by the story of doctors using "duck" tape. I'm
skeptical about it, slang etymologies often being suspect--the OED says the
term "quack" for a bad or fake doctor was in print by 1651--but it is
interesting. There is a Duck Tape brand now, but I figured that was due to
the common pronunciation of "duct" as "duck". However, painted cloth tape
has been around a long time (predating celluloid or plastic) and the Duck
name could also have referred to its water resistance. Also "cotton duck"
is a kind of canvas, used to make sails, covers and shoes among other
things, and the tape could have been named for being made from it. This is
probably the true origin of the name. So it is possible that "duct" is the
misnomer, insisted upon by those of us who thought we were encouraging
linguistic accuracy. Fooled us. I have never seen this tape used on ducts,
only the wide aluminum tape, though it's possible that before that was
invented it might have been used. 

Duck/t tape is also known as gaffer tape, in theatrical and pro photography
circles, as it is used by gaffers (lighting techs) to hold wires together,
or on top of wires on the floor to keep them from being picked up by
passing feet, or even to hold small lights in place. Some gaffers make a
distinction between duck tape and gaffer tape, saying that gaffer tape is
stronger; however, I've noticed that there are different grades of duck
tape, and they just use the better grade, often in 4" or 6" width instead
of the usual 2". I've never seen it manufacturer-labeled as gaffer tape,
but then I never looked closely. 

Roman poured concrete: In my first art history class (1973), I recall
seeing pictures of a Roman poured-concrete apartment building in Ostia
Antica (the old port of Rome) that had central heat and indoor plumbing. As
this class was in a college in South Florida whose campus looked like
something the Aztecs might have built if they'd had poured concrete, and I,
a recent transplant from Maryland, was finding this aesthetically
distasteful, finding out the Romans had built in this material was
interesting, but confirmed my already low opinion of the Roman Empire as a
bunch of guys who put pragmatism ahead of art. This is true, of course,
which is why they conquered all the other guys who put art first. And we
art students tended to think like this in the closing years of the Vietnam
War, since our expectations of survival were low. 

Architectural hazing: In my college days, I considered architecture as a
major, but was put off by the horror stories I heard of students working
all night to complete a model, only to have it demolished in front of the
class the next day... it appeared to me that much of what architecture
students did was try to impress their teachers and learn a lot of plumbing
codes. But I was young and stupid and inclined to hasty judgements. It has
however, been my observation (and was then) that much of the great
architecture of history was done by people who weren't products of the
modern system of training architects, and that architecture in general (in
my biased opinion) has declined since that system became the only means of
access to the profession. Wonder why? 

Back in those days I was a wild & crazy art student; the thought of all
that hard work and harsh criticism put me off, probably to my detriment.
Because like it or not, architects are the people who design buildings, and
you get to be one by going through all that grief. 

My distaste in those days for hard work and academic b.s. cost me later,
and my quixotic decision to study art instead of history or some allied
field (as had been expected of me from about age 5, since my interest in
history was well established by that age) led to a career in sales, which I
never sought... publishing came about when I was not making it as a
photographer and looking for anything better--I was offered a job selling
ad space, something I (like many people) didn't know anyone did. However, I
had always been interested in publishing too (started the school paper in
the 7th grade) and continued in that field, usually working on things that
were interesting, if not what I was most interested in. And I turned out to
be fairly good at it. Got into Preservation Sourcebook because the
publisher and I had worked together at a previous company, and I was
interested because it had to do with one of the great loves of my life,
historic buildings. And that kept me there, even in the dark days when
paychecks were unpredictable and I wondered what I was doing there--and
indeed, had all my friends and relations asking the same thing. But having
finally become involved in the field in some way, I didn't want to leave
it--I just hoped it would all work out, whether at PSB or elsewhere. And
I'm still hoping that. The reason for all these confessions? Last week I
turned down a $50,000 a year job recruiting computer people, at which I
would probably do very well. This would have amounted to almost double what
I am now making--we put all the money into the book (which, by the way, is
now bringing in about twice the revenue it was a year ago). It had all the
practical things going for it, and I was trying hard to talk myself into
it, but my gut reaction was not to touch it with a barge-pole. I am
following my intuition, and the tough part about that is, you never know
where it is leading. 

Don White
Associate Publisher (still!)
Preservation Sourcebook