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Ten Years Going On 50

By Jan Nesset

Toot! In your hands is our 10-year anniversary issue, a celebration of a decade of publishing Inside/Outside Southwest magazine, and perhaps the beginning of decades more. Maybe, even, five decades - 50 years. In this special issue, we look back to the past 10 years of issues while looking ahead 50 years. Why look both ways?

First, what better way to celebrate our journey than to take a look back at the journey, a trip we've taken with a lot of great writers, illustrators and photographers? We've gleaned excerpts from stories in every issue to now, every one, to show off some of the writing that has graced our pages. This is not a "best of" issue, because what you have is a random sampling of writing we've published over a decade. Thought-provoking, funny, sad, stupid, delirious, maddening, heart-warming (and -breaking), ridiculous, brilliant, ranting, raging, here you go. We're sorry we didn't have the space to honor past photographers and but one illustrator in this issue. They're as much a part of this journey as the writers. We had to choose.

It also pains us to not publish full stories in some cases, because, let's face it, excerpts fall short of showing the depth and breadth of a story. If you can be dazzled with a metaphor, we've pulled trophy teeth from winning smiles. The smile just ain't the same without all pearly whites standing in a row. We hope each tooth we've pulled here can invoke the smile from which it came. Or a belly laugh. Maybe a tear. We expect some furrowed brows. Go ahead, shriek in delight - or horror. If you wet your pants, we expect that can happen too but you're probably drunk. Carry on!

Looking ahead 50 years could for some readers require keeping the bottle-opener handy. Each of our columnists and one contributing editor took a head trip into the future 50 years to take a look around 2058. They made it back, glowing, carrying with them plenty to think about. Steven J. Meyers, the author of the Home Water column, summed it best in this issue where he writes, ". . . if we do not write our hopes, we are lost already."

I hope we can grab this issue 50 years from now and see that we've come a very long way, making it past the uncertainty of 2008 to a place of peace and sustainability. Where everyone is smiling.