For some years I've been urged by friends to create a web site, more recently a blog. I was reluctant, unable to understand how offering work online for free would help me at checkout time at the market. Perhaps I'll figure that out in time.
Meanwhile, this blog, while not earning a nickel, has been a major source of joy in my life. It has enabled people I have not seen or heard-from in years to reach me. Those occasions are worth whatever minor effort it was to set up this blog and feed it content.
Two people from the past have reached me via this page. One is the daughter of an old motorcycling friend from the early '70s. He passed away years and years ago, but she has become a bicyclist, quite a bicyclist in truth, who maintains her own blog.
Jackie recognized my name through our mutual loyalty to the folks who make Bike Friday travel bikes. I've ridden my Bike Friday in Arizona and Colorado. She's ridden hers all over the world.
She's still friends with San Francisco Bay Area people who were friends of her daddy's and mine back when. Connections that had failed long ago may well be remade.
Then, just two days ago I got a comment from a blog reader who asked, "Weren't you my uncle in the '60s?"
I was. Nick's mom is the sister of my ex-wife Jacquie. He and his wife live now in Minneapolis. He raced bicycles in the '80s and remembers seeing my work in Winning Magazine in those wooly days. He spent years away from cycling but has returned to riding and even racing...and took the trouble to get in touch with his uncle from long ago.
I haven't lived around family since the mid-'60s, and I've moved a number of times since then, leaving behind friends and places that had been dear. This blog has brought some of those friends and a few of those places back into the present in my life.
If this is an unintended consequence, I'd like more please...
3 comments:
Hi Maynard,
You've figured out one of the rewards of blogging and in time you'll figure out others. The big thing is the immediacy and how you can connect with folks. Also, as you've seen, the freedom to write about what happens to interest you.
As for the financial end of things, the online world is interesting. My blog was a big part of how I was able to race the Great Divide back in '05 and these days it doesn't provide a huge revenue stream but basically pays for my coffee drinks, a few gadgets for my bikes and such. I try to be up front with folks about what revenue comes from my blog. You can see what I do at:
http://kentsbike.blogspot.com/
If you click on the Mountain Turtle logo there, you can read about my GDR race.
Keep up the great blogging,
Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson
Issaquah WA USA
M~
Love the blog and I'll have to put a link up on mine soon. Glad you have reconnected with some buddies and family!
Another funny thing is that practically the only thing I remember from when I was 4 years old was me and my mom's visit to see you and Jacquie! I remember riding on the back of your motorcycle going up through the hills, your raccoon at the shop...I think I even remember what your house / apartment looked like, but it's a little hazy.
See ya soon Uncle Maynard.
N.
Post a Comment