Joe Says:
YeaHHHH!
Remember when Bill Clinton gave his keynote address at the 1988 DNC and the crowd livened up and cheered when he finally wrapped up his boring, long-winded speech? I feel that way about this, my last blog posting, my farewell to blogging.
I’ve been far from long-winded lately. In fact, I don’t think I’ve posted anything here with Bob since early 2008. Who can remember? But I’m sure it’s a relief to all, including my pal Bob, that I say “This is it!” And Bob can change the banner and reaffirm that this has really been a solo gig all along.
Nah, I know he doesn’t really feel that way. Bob has been very generous to offer me this blog-share and I have perpetually stiffed him on providing fresh content. Simple fact is I think I’ve run out of things to say.
It wasn’t always like this. When I started over five years ago in 2003 I practically posted something every day. Bob was the guy who got me started. Take a look at my very first post:
And so it begins.
About how many first blogs start out that way? You figure half a mil?
I was inspired today, the second day of the new year, to jumpstart this gig, by my old pal Bob in Pittsburgh. He turned 40 today and I wrote to say hello. Gonna be joining him on the last up slope of life in 9 days. Then it all tumbles downhill. He shares the same b-day with my wife Rebecca and, he doesn't know this, but my sister Sue too. Bob's been bloggering for half a year and his postings are amazing and amuzing. So I'm giving it a whirl.
Let's see how it goes.
That first year I called the blog Freckle Face Strawberry. That was one of my nicknames as a kid and it seemed to tag along well with the kind of self-absorbed writing I tended to do that year (and every year since) chronicling the story of an immature dad with two boys trying to relive his life vicariously through their lives. I talked a bunch about living in Washington in the post-9/11 Bush/Cheney scare years. But I dealt mostly with trying to recapture the past. I archived that first year today and discovered that it took up 261 single-spaced pages of densely filled text including an enormously wasteful, exhaustive project listing every movie I ever saw in a movie theater. Like the ramblings of the guy who shot George Wallace. Never posted half as much material in any year since, and many people seemed grateful for that.
In 2004 I segued into a new title with the same old theme. Called the place Remembrance of Tangs Past. It was spurred on by drinking Metamucil and how it reminded me of Tang and suddenly a flood of memories came pouring in about growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s. That was the idea anyway and the continuing focus of the piece was turning back to episodes in the past to try to explain how things turned out so badly in the future. Including my digestive system.
That year saw our big, stupid move to South Carolina, which spawned the 2005 version of the blog called Life in thisLowcountry, chronicling our misadventures in the South dealing with crazy haircut places, wild dash-hounds, snakes, spiders, nosy store clerks, juicy burgers, critters, and creationists. It was a fine idea at the time, but it was a brilliant mistake that we still haven’t forgotten and have yet to look on with a complete sense of whimsy. Nice pool though.
Next year, 2006, came our triumplant return to DC and my attempts to redeem myself by running a marathon. Foolishly named that year’s blog Marathon Man and sure enough I made it through the race. Haven’t run a lick since. But early that year I wrote the only semi-popular series of posts I ever did: a summary ranking of all the Beatles songs. I know they were popular because Bob and Julie commented on them every day.
And that’s been the best part of the whole blogging enterprise for me. To catch up and tag along with my old pal Bob and his great family, and share the adventures of parenting with them. I can’t wait to hear about their experiences living through their kids future sex ed classes, and encounters with wacky teachers and Neo-Nazi school nurses in the years to come, just like Rebecca and I have experienced with our boys.
To try to mutually reinvigorate our blogging lives Bob and I cooked up a scheme in 2007 to join forces, seeing as though our lives paralleled pretty closely, born the same month in the same year, years watching the same shows while growing up, meeting up in grad school, getting married, raising kids, tracking back over our lives, finding pathetic humor in most things local and national. It’s Bob’s blogging home, always has been, and he kept at the funny story-telling more loyally and has always enjoyed a great following from the really terrific and close band of readers and fellow writers out there…meaning you.
Thanks to everybody in the reader pool for having me check in once in awhile as a guest party-crasher! And a special thanks for indulging (or patiently skipping) my serialized book idea awhile back! Books are books. What’s here on this screen is something different. Words and pictures and sounds seem to work better on the screen. Especially pictures of the Neckbeard guy and earworm sounds from the Starland Vocal Band.
I’ll turn the channel changer back over to Bob now. Thanks for letting me be a small part of the show. Bob says I can come back as a special guest, like Phil Silvers as Harold Hecuba on Gilligan or Honest John on the Hillbillies. In the meantime, I’ll see you all in the comments section.
Thank you, Bob.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program already in progress…
