A Really Good Book

So…  Nice to see you again…  You’ve aged well.

My plan for this blog was to slap a big ol’ ABANDON IN PLACE notification on it and just walk away.  Which I did.  Later, my son, then nine years old, started reading it.  I can’t remember the exact circumstances of “how” of “why”, but I seem to remember showing him a few things like maybe his old drawings from when he was two or three. He says he thinks he started reading it after telling him about how he used to play with his Noah’s Ark playset when he was a toddler.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. 

He liked to go to the site occasionally and read (or re-read) about himself as a baby and about him growing up through the years.  He shared the articles with his classmates and with his teachers and they all got a good laugh.  Makes me smile to think about that.

After a while he asked if I could start writing again.  I said “Maybe… I don’t know.  There’s a lot of other things I’d rather be doing.”  He understood but he would still occasionally ask if I was going to ever write any more articles. My response was always semi-positive but non-committal.  The maybe-est maybe I could muster without implying “no” (because I just didn’t know) or giving false hope (because I just didn’t know).

So nearly three years of maybe-driven non-writing pass.

The night before Christmas 2019 my son hands me a gift to open.  It is large and heavy.  Hmmm. Clearly a hardcover book.  I open the wrappings and see the pic there on the left.

He had somehow found out that you could turn someone’s blog into an actual book.  It is over 400 pages long and covers the period from August 2007 through December 2012, which is why it says “The 36th Lock Volume 1” on the cover.  The binding is solid, the pages are glossy, and the print quality is superb.  It is really amazing to feel “time” made solid as I riffle back and forth through the pages.

But that’s not the best part.  Not by a longshot.

The best part is the Dedication:

The signatures are those of his classmates and of his current teacher.

Feels, little dude.  Feels.

It is 12:03PM Sunday, January 26th, the Year of Our Lord 2020.  It is 49 degrees and sunny.  I am listening to my wife talk with the 11-year-old as they sit together on the sofa downstairs. He coughs occasionally (some sort of bug going around at his school, we guess). The low rumble of a hamster wheel is just audible from a room off to my left. And I am writing.

This is awesome.