The Ramble at Sweet Sixteen

 

by Pa Rock

Blogger

That's right.  Unbelievable as it may seem, this daily effort of spleen-venting-through-blogging began sixteen years ago this very evening in a small desert apartment in Goodyear, Arizona.  I was bored and seeking a distraction, and decided that I would teach myself how to blog.   I missed a few days that first year as I debated on whether to meet a daily, self-imposed deadline or not, but gradually my OCD took over and I managed to get something posted every day.  Over the past year I have given strong consideration to retiring the effort, but a couple of "guest bloggers" have stepped forward at critical times and provided relief when it was most needed - and appreciated!

So I continue to bang out something every day - at least for the time being.

The Ramble's readership has declined precipitously this past year due to the fact that I quit Twitter when Leon Elon Musk took over.  I had used that platform to  promote the blog daily and maintained a steady readership of fifty or more per day.  Now, without the free advertising that Twitter provided, twenty readers constitute a good day - and many days the total is nearer to half of that.

But still I type.   I see this effort as a social and political repository of information that might be of use to a few oddball researchers at some point in the distant future: "News and Views of the early 21st Century as Filtered Through Pa Rock."

The history:

This blog has been around through at least parts of four US presidencies, and it has had a lot to say about the way the country has been and is run.  It began on November 4, 2007, during the second term of George W. Bush, with a post promoting the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama entitled "Obama '08," and exactly one year after that posting Barack Obama defeated John McCain for the presidency.  The Ramble contained a posting during every single day of Barack Obama' s two terms in the White House, with many of those dealing with American and international politics and the Obama presidency.   The blog also ran every day of the Trump one-term presidency, and during that time a lot of what I had to say was focused on the immorality and corruption emanating from the White House.  Now we are well into the Biden administration, and still I type.

I lived and worked in the Far East for two of the sixteen years that The Ramble has been in existence, and many of the postings originated in my sixth-floor apartment that overlooked the East China Sea from Okinawa.  I also posted blog entries from a couple of the other Ryuku Islands as well as South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and my personal favorite, Guam.  After returning to the States and ultimately retiring, I had the opportunity to travel to Cuba and did a week's worth of postings from various locations on that island nation.  The blog has also traveled with me to a range of places in the United States including multiple locations in Arizona and Missouri and on to Arkansas, Kansas, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, California, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, Utah, and, of course, beautiful northern Idaho!  The Ramble and I are both well traveled, and some of the high points of those wanderings are archived in its pages.

Over the past two years I have also managed to stuff a lot of my family history into The Ramble.  Most of it will hopefully get separated out into printed family histories, but if I fail to get that accomplished, family researchers can still find my family research buried in the archives of Pa Rock's Ramble.  I have also shamelessly included stories of my children and grandchildren which they may not have wanted to be preserved, but the power o the pen will not be denied!  (Four of my six grandchildren have been born in the years since this blog first appeared.)

And Pa Rock's Ramble has also served as a repository for much of my personal writing.  It harbors some of my really lame poetry, a few short stories, articles from my days of writing for a newspaper, and various free-lance magazine articles that I have written over the years - and even a few college papers.   The Ramble also contains the complete "Rusty Pails" collection - Rusty is kind of fun, check him out if you have some time to spare.  I have also written a few plays, some of which have even been performed - but none of thos are yet preserved in The Ramble, due primarily to formatting issues.  Perhaps someday I will tackle getting them posted as well.

But I ramble!  If this blog had been born human, it would be driving by now!

Thanks for stopping by.