Why were you editor for 12 years?

[Introduction:] When I became Executive Editor of Historical Methods in 2001, I had no idea what I was getting into—no mission statement, no set of issues I wanted to feature, no conferences planned, no cache of papers I wanted to publish. I inherited a very small backlog of articles, almost no files about previous practices or lists of referees, and no advice from previous editors. I had subscribed to the journal from at least its third volume in 1970, but I admit that I did not always read it. I had published articles in it some years before, but I had not paid very much attention to the editorial process they went through. I had some experience in correcting and criticizing papers and I had refereed a lot of them, mostly for other journals. Fortunately, I inherited Barbara Kahn.