I started blahgging in 2003 but, for complicated reasons, I am never sure if I began it on July 22 or 23. According to the archive, it was the 22nd. That was back in the day when I “rolled my own” blahg, i.e., I didn’t use blahgging software, I hand-edited html files every day. Here’s a link to my first entry and here’s a link to my “roll-yer-own” archive page (lots of buttons on the left sidebar probably don’t work any more — click ’em atchyer own risk).

July 22 is also UKW’s birthday but I didn’t mention that back in 2003. There’s no particular reason for that (other than that I don’t usually call out people’s birthdays on my blahg but that’s a more recent phenomenon). I’m sure I thought about it. I hadn’t seen UKW in quite a while. Not that we were estranged in any way. Just that we lived across the country from each other and were both busy in the kind of way you get into when you have teenaged children who are getting ready to fly the coop. We reconnected in a big way a few years later when our octogenarians began to get frail and I will never forget the day I picked UKW from DTW after not seeing her in person in something like nine years and drove her to the yooperland. I don’t think we shut up the entire way there and I, who am usually totally focused on driving, missed at least one turn getting from DTW to the appropriate freeway.

My early entries were short and to the point. What did I do today? What did grandaddy do? Did the POC act up? How was the weather? Letting those who remained on The Planet Ann Arbor know I was alive and well. I evolved slowly into long unintelligible entries of blather. Going back to read my early entries, I’m not so sure that evolution was a good thing.

When I read these entries, I remember the things that were going on behind the scenes. Then, as now, there was that whole other category of things-I-can’t-blah-about. When I wrote about the “kayak powwow”, I remember that two of my cousins and I were hanging out in the middle of the bay talking about The Commander, who was spending the night at the hoosegow getting some blood pumped into her. Anemia with no specific cause (a *good* thing). Later that day, some shirt-tail relatives who had a long-standing invitation from my grandfather to visit the beach *visited* and, although they didn’t come inside, my dad and I had some fancy work to do to keep them from guessing that The Comm was actually *not* at the cabin. “Oh, she’s inside getting dinner ready.” Roight.

Grandaddy patrolling the old road and parts of the beach? This photooo was probably not from that day but there he is with his stick. Not that he needed a stick for actual walking even at that time of his life. He carried one as much as anything to deal with unexpected wild aminals and mad dogs. Or people like me, who took that photooo. That’s Sam directly in front of me. He looks like he’s protecting me but it was really all a big game. The parents are dead now and so are the shirt-tail relatives (well, not sure about the wife but *think* so).

So here it is 11 years later and I don’t always know why I am keeping this dern thing up but I guess it’s because I *can*. Tonight? Beautiful walk downtown to meet up with the GG and npJane at Bill’s Beer Garden and then dinner at the Grizzly. We had planned to walk home too but decided it would be smart to accept a ride home from npJane. Work tomorrow and then the GG begins his northward journey, picking up the Lyme Lounge along the way. All kinds of Fins (and a couple MacMullans) will convene at the moominbeach during the next couple weeks. C’mon, it’ll be fun!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.