folding-mode and loading .emacs

[bigfaceworm <bigfaceworm@gmail.com>]

All,

Long time user of folding mode, but recently came across an annoying
behavior I wondered if others had seen (and worked around).

I'm using Emacs version 22.1   Folding 3.42 (2007.0506)  and  Folding
2.97 both.

My .emacs is folded.  Sometimes when I save my .emacs the lines are
"folded" and have ^M characters on them, essentially turning each of
the folds into one big comment - and preventing Emacs from evaluating
any of the elisp contained within.  Other times the .emacs is saved w/
out the ^M (I presume) because my Emacs will start up just fine.

So, two questions.

Any idea what might be causing this?  It started when I upgraded to
Emacs 22.1 (built my own after changing jobs).

And, why must files be saved folded?  I don't understand why the file
can't be saved as a regular file (w/out ^M), and just folded upon
loading it.  I see the write file hook turns on folding.

tia,

TJ