Missed a big birthday yesterday – South Dakota War College is 19 years old!
It must be kismet. Fate, if you’re not familiar with the term.
I spent most of yesterday sick as a dog and curled up in bed, having eaten something I shouldn’t have the night before when I was traveling back to Brookings from Spearfish. I thought it might be the Chinese I ordered after I got home, but my wife is convinced that it was the gas station sandwich I grabbed for Lunch during the 6 1/2 hour drive home. And a couple days later, I notice my likely gas station cuisine induced illness had distracted me from an important milestone. This website – South Dakota War College – in a universe where most blogs hardly last more than two years has managed to fully achieve 19 years of age.
When I wrote my first post, I was 38 years old with six kids, one of which was a newborn. Now, I’m that much older, the father of seven, with most out of the house; two married, one in the middle of law school, one a Legislative Assistant in Congress, one learning how to drive submarines in the Navy, and the last child’s graduation in sight in a couple of years. Maybe I’m close to minimizing the number of boomerang kids, but I won’t count on it.
It’s still hard to wrap my head around it that I’ve been around 19 years. Literally, it’s like an employment career… with the worst salary and benefits ever. Come join the world of blogging! Be avoided on the street! Your friends and enemies alike will throw rocks! Get the tar beaten out of you on-line for years to come!
Sounds attractive, doesn’t it?
There are times when writing/posting gets to be a chore, and there are times when words just flow. In an environment where just about all of the websites who were around when I started are gone, and those that came after have dropped off, I’m not sure why I’m one of the last ones standing. But here I am after 19 years.
When I started writing, it was for the goal of making state politics better, and I don’t know that the goal has changed all that much, because it’s a constantly a moving target.
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to find and some candidates and elected officials who were and are worth believing in, because they have found a way to be both inspirational and aspirational as they try to find solutions for their fellow South Dakotan. There’s also those who you think are ok, but turn out to be schmucks. Of course, you have those that you know to be awful, and leave you shaking your head in disbelief that their voters don’t get it.
But hopefully we can find come across more champions of their fellow men and women who are guided by their values and sense of the common good, as opposed to the cookie cutter candidates whose bullet points are all nearly identical, because their values come less from themselves than they do from what they read on facebook.
I’m starting to make this overly long when I have other things I need to get done tonight. But suffice it to say, I appreciate you, my readers, and thank you for the 19 years to date. We’ll see if I can keep this up for another 19!
and a musical note from Joe Jackson about remaining Nineteen forever!
