Treesong had been trying to lure me (although not me specifically – he was casting his net wide) at Stamford for a couple of years, but it was after I'd been on a treasure hunt team with Belles Lettres/Arbutus/Pebbles, and got a more personal invitation (and a nom!) that I finally gave in.
Source: npl-folk email from 100 Down.
First Issue: Feb 1992
I claimed, when pressed by Belles Lettres, that I couldn't join because I couldn't think of anything clever to do with my name for a nom (now why, since of the four people who show as my “parents” in the tree only Pebbles' nom has any relation to her name, I thought this was even a point worth mentioning, I can't tell you). “Well,” said she, “we'll take care of that right now.” And Belles and Cathy Milhauser sat down and proceeded (with one or two less promising stops along the way) to transpose ED RICE into C EIDER. And there it is: 100 DOWN.
I surrendered; and the rest, as they say, is history.
My first combinom came from working with my solving partner, Tyger. Together, we're TYED DOWN. This was such an evocative combinom that when the Underground Enigma II came out, we had an entry with the combinom serving as the end of the final line.
My most prolific partnership has been with Xemu. He and I are MARK DOWN. (See 1 mark 3 c in 10C.) He did do one verse on a base of mine: I believe we used CMU for that, but I'll have to check.
When I versify Wabbit's bases, we become WATERSHIP DOWN. This capitalizes both on the starting WA of her nom, and on its wabbity totality.
I've also done a couple of QED's bases. QEDown was the combinom we used.
The only other I remember [. . .] was for a flat I wrote to the tune of “Hernando's Hideaway” for a base by Beacon, as he was then. We picked BEAM DOWN for our byline.