Giving Thanks for the Year Gone By

Part of the tradition around the celebration of the New Year that I grew up with, involved coming up with a list of things that we were thankful for from the previous year. Well, despite the fact that time has turned me from a young idealistic true believer into a cranky agnostic cynical old fart, I still find that the exercise has merit.

Last year was for me, the year of the blogs. I went from occasionally perusing a couple of favorite political sites to obsessively devouring a whole host of commentary on a daily basis. This addiction has continued to grow and to branch out in very unexpected ways.

I tend to be something of a loner and I like the combination of distance and familiarity that blog posting and commenting affords. For that reason, I was a little taken aback when a couple of Hooligans decided that it might be a good idea for a disparate group of posters and commenters from very different perspectives and with very different agendas to get together for real live face to face conversation. The horror! They wanted us to intentionally come out from behind our computers, let drop our hallowed screen names and personae and well, interact in public.

It was an idea so crazy, so fraught with danger that it just might work. So, despite all of my misgivings, I showered and shaved, turned off my computer and headed out into the real world to meet all of you and for that I am exceedingly thankful. From the bars and cafes of Asheville to the BBQ and Freedom March at our place to a posh North Asheville villa for a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, it has enriched our lives and made us feel a little more like active participants in our community, virtual and otherwise.

So, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to say how thankful I am to the Hooligans that first proposed this insane notion and to each and every one of you who embraced it and made it such a success. I also want to say thank you to each of you for sharing your unique perspective on the world with me. Whatever else the New Year may hold, I look forward to an expansion of this idea and to getting to know all of you better.

Peace . . .