New Directions
When I first started this blog in 2014, when it was solely on Facebook, I got a comment one day that said, “So what?” It stopped me in my tracks and made me want to run and hide. But then I decided I was writing for myself and if people wanted to come and read it they were welcome, but I’d still write, regardless. In the beginning, it was mostly about nature and life in the Hill Country. Then, in a seismic shift, I started writing about my wife’s illness and later, her death. And it became a book. On occasion a current event would slip in, but rarely.
Last year, however, I decided to do more current events, because I thought the 2024 election was a vital election in the history of our country, and I didn’t want to be whistling in the woods while it went on, given my advanced age. The response was a bit more intense than I anticipated. I was even told I was much more suited to personal musings than political commentary, and another is still sending me bible verses. I tried to engage everyone in as civil a tone as I could muster, but after the election, I stopped entirely.
Harkening back to my original thoughts on what I was doing, however, I’ve decided current events are fair game and present a nice intellectual challenge. And if I’m free to offer commentary about pruning a tree, I’m probably free to talk about pruning government agencies. Afterall, the first words of the constitution say, We the People of the United States, and I’m one of the people. And people are free to read me or not, and I’m sorry I won’t always write about soft things, but they’ll still be there. I just want to wander in the political woods on occasion and see what turns up, because this is history in real time, and I like history. I don’t pretend to have a lot of answers, but I do have questions, and sometimes those are more interesting than answers.