In the fifth grade, Sister Mary Ethelburga came to class one day with a list of other 10-year-olds from around the country who wanted like-minded penpals. A penpal! What a thrill. We could find out how other kids lived in faraway, exotic-sounding places like Indianapolis, Yuma, or Baton Rouge. I’ve heard stories of people who remain penpals for life but I think my penpal lasted about 6 months. I’m sure that writing a letter was low on my list of priorities (after bike riding, reading Nancy Drew, and playing dolls) but Sister thought it was important to learn how other people lived and letters were a good way to share experiences with others. If only Sister Mary Ethelburga could see the blogging world today!
A year has gone by since I discovered garden blogs and began my own. I can’t remember how I found out all you people were out there talking about gardening (without me), but my best guess is that I probably Googled something that brought up one of your sites. Tentatively, I put up my first post the last week in June, and was thrilled when a few people started leaving comments. At first it was mainly Carol at Boxwood Cottage who kept me going, then Salix Tree joined in followed by Annie in Austin and then suddenly there was a whole community of gardeners I could visit with and view their photos of triumphs and tragedies. Gosh, this is fun, and no postage required!
When I joined AOL in the late ‘90s, I quickly found a gardening chatroom and learned I needed something called a screen name. I’d just read Thomas Christopher’s ‘In Search of Lost Roses’, and that seemed a natural for a “garden name.” Others in the chat room thought it meant my roses had died and that was okay since it was true some of the time. My participation in the chatroom was even shorter-lived than my penpal correspondence. While the topics were occasionally on gardening, most of the people who dropped in had the same question, “Uhhh, how do you grow pot?” While it might be a valid question, my interests were a bit more varied. And that’s where you all come in. Now, in the evenings after work, I can drop in on my blogging friends from around the country and around the world and take a peek into what they did today. You never fail to amuse, enchant, and inform me. Thank you all for being in the blogisphere!
Lost Roses in Mexico in February 2007.
