It's hard to believe that The wire is starting its 25th year of publication. I first joined The Main Street WIRE starting with its second edition, after having written a few stories for its predecessor, The Island View.

Little did I know then that my experience with The WIRE would lead to a journalism career that has included stints at The Associated Press, United Press International, and now The Times of Trenton in New Jersey, where I am a political reporter.

When I joined The WIRE, I was lucky enough to fall under the wing of the paper's first news editor, Clare Walker, the first in a string of professional journalists or writers to hold that position She gave me encouragement and insight and helped push me toward a reporting career.

The WIRE was a tremendous training ground for me. It let me gain experience in covering a wide array of issues ranging from urban development to the workings of city and state governmental agencies to local politics.

While there were a number of important stories on Roosevelt Island in the mid to late 1980s, the ones I remember best are those dealing with the experiment of a ferry run from the Island to lower Manhattan, the shutting down of the tram because of a nationwide insurance crisis, and the paper's coverage of crime, particularly drug selling from what was then known as the Green Kitchen.

That coverage led to threats of lawsuits against the paper and me, but Jack Resnick, who founded The WIRE, encouraged me to continue pressing the issue, which culminated with a raid on the restaurant and the arrest of its two owners.

I remember talking Jack into the paper covering the meeting of the state agency that finally approved what is now Manhattan Park and getting the story in the issue that would come out the next day.

Needless to say he was concerned about trying to make changes at the last minute and risking our press schedule, but I refused to back down saying the story needed to be covered and he finally gave in.

I raced out to our publication office in Queens that afternoon to rewrite much of the story with new details. When Jack arrived to give final approval to the issue and put the paper to bed, I remember how pleased he was that we had been able to get daily news into the paper.

I'll admit that I was a bit intimidated by Jack when I first started writing for the paper, but I got over that. My admiration and respect for him grew tremendously in the years I served as news editor before moving to Chicago to join the AP in 1988, however. He encouraged me to be aggressive in our coverage of Island affairs, whether they were the doings of RIOC or countless other issues, and we became good friends.

I developed many friends through my work on The Wire and people on the Island grew to know who I was - rather heady stuff for a twentysomething. That was driven home to me when my dad, who has lived on Roosevelt Island continuously since 1977, was approached by someone who asked him, "Excuse me, but aren't you Mark Perkiss' father?"

My time on The WIRE was both a joy and a tremendous educational experience. The paper holds a special place in my heart.