Looking Back: The First Year

So it’s been a year, more or less, for this blog.

Always one for looking back and keeping track, I thought I’d take a moment to highlight some of my favorite posts from the first year, the ones I had the most fun writing, each for a different reason. Think of this as an “If you only read five, read these five” kind of list:

• (Avoiding) The Road To Provincetown.  Forget five. If you’re only going to read one post from this blog, read this one. In it, I describe a whirlwind trip to Provincetown, on the very tip of Cape Cod, in September. It was my first trip back to my brother’s home since his memorial service, 23 years ago, and even though I’d been looking forward to it for months — years, really — I was completely surprised by the storm of emotions that blew over me during my 18-hour visit.  The actual writing of this post, much of it in near-real time during the trip, may have been the only thing that kept me on an even keel.

• Boycott The Bowls! In my endless quest for social justice. I took on a corrupt American institution to try to make things fairer for everyone. Unsuccessful so far, but we must keep at it!

• Marathon Dreams (Continued). This was, essentially, an account of my best running race of 2010, a half marathon from Clayton to Forest Park and back. Perhaps it wasn’t my best running prose of the year, but it was my best race, so I like this one.:-)  An earlier race report, on the Quivering Quads Trail Half Marathon in March, was far and away my most-read post of the year, thanks to its inclusion on race sponsor Fleet Feet Sports’ Web page. That one still gets a few hits just about every day, even more now that this year’s race is rapidly approaching.

• A One-Way Drive In 1980. Fairly early in this blogging business, I was thinking back to major anniversaries in my life, and realized that the year 1980 — 30 years back from when I was writing — was perhaps one of the most significant years in my personal story. So I undertook to: a) try to document the highlights and b) make it interesting enough for people other than myself to read. I’m not sure I succeeded in either part of that effort, but this was one of my favorite “1980” posts. It was actually the first of three parts, documenting a wild weekend that led up to concert by The Who in St. Louis in April 1980.

• A New Way To Look At St. Louis. This was an all-too-unusual post for me this last year. I had thought, going in, that I’d do a lot of these little photo-story posts, but I guess I just didn’t really take as many worthwhile pictures last year as I hoped. Anyway, this one was fun; I took a long lunch, walked across Eads Bridge to investigate a new park I’d never visited before, and snapped a few pictures along the way. Then, within an hour or so, put it up here. That’s the way it’s supposed to go, I think, and hopefully I’ll do more of that in the future.

And there you have it. The first year of Shoulblog is in the books. To anyone who actually made it to the end of any of these posts, thank you for reading, and especially thank you to those who have left comments along the way. As for the future of this blog, I have no plans other than to keep going where the currents take me. And I welcome you along for the ride.