Are you familiar with the term, "Zine"? It's taken from the word, "magazine", and refers to
a small, privately published magazine or newsletter that doesn't look for recognition from
the mainstream of society; it is usually geared toward a smaller group or subclass. Zines
can be very slick and professional looking or very humble. They address interests as varied
as stamp collecting, race relations or underground music. Some have a circulation of
several thousand; some have a circulation in the low double digits.
Terry Ward puts out one of the best known zines in the country. His zine, "Notes From
The Dump" is consistently on media critics' Top10 lists. NFTD, as it is known, has been
profiled by the Boston Globe, People Magazine, Whole Earth Review and a host of other
impressive publications.
What is it? Perhaps the best description is the zine's motto: "1986-1999, Thirteen Years of
Bombastic Puling". Simply put, it is a collection of Ward's thoughts, opinions, likes,
dislikes, jokes, letters or anything else he feels like sharing, written in an odd, eloquent,
stream of consciousness style. In a given issue, a reader might read a book review of a
historical novel, a rant against commercial sponsorship of Public Radio, a short biography
of Nelson Mandella, or a treatise on the existential aspects of a bowl of chocolate ice-
cream
It's tempting to say something to the effect of, "Ward lives and works in Acworth", but he
probably wouldn't see it that way. He does live there, and he does work there, but he
would balk at the distinction between the two states.
The story of his life reads like a bizarre travelogue - a sort of a surreal cross between Jack
Kerouak and Martin Heidegger. This is the short version:
Ward served in the Navy during Viet Nam. On the day he left the service, he got off the
ship in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, walked across the street, into the offices of the local
newspaper and landed a job as a reporter. He turned out to be extremely good at the job
and for the next 5 or 6 years, was on a career "fast track", moving to bigger and more
prestigious papers every year or so.
Then he gave it up.
As he puts it, "I got divorced and went on a hitchhiking tour of the country". He traveled
around the country for a couple of years - sometimes comfortably, at other times, living in
alleys. He ended up in Acworth, New Hampshire, where he got a job at the town dump.
He says it was a kind of epiphany when he was show around the dump and told,
"Everything here is yours."
"I loved it," he says. "Aside from what I'm doing now, it is the best job I ever had." One
of the things he liked best about it was that he had a lot of time to think. Eventually, he
started jotting down those thoughts at night when he got home. Those notes became
"Notes From The Dump". Why that title? "Because Dostoyevski had already taken
"Notes From the Underground," he says. He started handing out copies of the Notes to
customers at the dump. More and more people started reading them, until Ward found
himself publishing a zine.
It has always been a labor of love for him. "Part of your salary in any job is your job
satisfaction," Ward says. "If it fills the larder, so much the better." Unfortunately though,
NFTD wasn't doing that. For many years, a friend supported the expenses of the
publication - paper, printing, stamps - and Ward had to scratch hard for a living. Then, last
summer, he had a change of luck. He won 50 thousand dollars in the state lottery.
"The bank had a rapid change of attitude," he says. "Suddenly, they were getting me
coffee." He was able to realize a life-long dream. "I'd always wanted to hold an inch-thick
stack of hundred dollar bills." He adds, "There's $9,000 dollars in one, by the way."
What the money really did for him was to give him some breathing room so that he could
devote himself full-time to his passions - writing, painting and motorcycles. He was able to
invest in some computer equipment and put NFTD on-line. He has had several exhibitions
of his paintings. And he was able to indulge his passion for vintage motorcycles.
He describes his life in existential terms - as a quest for a meaningless existence; "only by
achieving total meaninglessness can a life have meaning." But, that of course holds
meaning, so the whole philosophy falls back on itself and gets terribly confusing. "It's very
Zen," he says with a smile.
