Keeping it Real

Recently, a friend and regular reader of my blog sent me an e-mail with a link to an article about "Secrets of Productive Bloggers." Basically what the article said was that most of the productive bloggers make it up sometimes. Well, initially I took some offense to being sent that article. Was she insinuating that I make up some of my blogs? I don't mean to be too defensive but I'm here to tell you that anything you read on my blog is not made up. It is the whole, unvarnished, gospel truth. To me it's too hard to make things up. Anything that appears in this blog is the real deal. There is nothing artificial in this blog.

Another friend of mine likes to write stories. He tells me he writes often about his childhood experiences but substitutes made up names for people and places. I asked "Why? Is someone going to sue you?" He says that John Updike did the same thing with his novels. Maybe that's what the famous writer John Updike did, but if I ever got around to writing my Great American Novel it will be with real names of people and places. Events would not be made up. There would be no exaggerations (like the author who got into trouble with Oprah Winfrey.) To me real life is so much more interesting and, sometimes unbelievable than anything we can make up.

Such is the case with my daily blog. Of course there are things I cannot write about out of respect for privacy of my friends and relatives. I don't post that information on my blog. Once I did about a good friend of mine who is slipping into dementia but I was reminded by another friend that I wasn't being fair by making such information public. I agreed with him and deleted that blog posting. Occasionally I slip into revealing too much personal information (such as my recent visit to my Mother in Pennsylvania) but I usually catch it before I publish the posting.

What the readers of my blog see is all real events in my life. They may be interesting to some people and other people may find them a snooze fest. I can't do anything about that. In fact, I'm not even concerned with those who don't find my blog interesting. I write my blog for my own benefit as a form of therapy. Of course I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog who find it interesting. Who wouldn't like that compliment. I'm no different than most people, I appreciate attention for my efforts. I thoroughly enjoy writing my blog. I don't feel my day would be complete without my blog posting.

From a young age I've always liked to write. As a teenager I had at one point sixty seven pen pals. What did I write in my letters? Probably much of what I write in my blog now, events in my daily life and how I react to them. In fact, I still have some of the letters I received from my pen pals of over 50 years ago. I may publish some of them in future blog postings. I don't know if I have any of my old letters though. If I do, it would have been one that was returned for a bad address. It would be interesting to see what I wrote at that time.

There are some pre blog postings that I have lying around though. Over the years I have kept journals off and on. One such journal I found recently. Reading it now, it sounds somewhat immature but hey, that's where I was back in January 1, 1986. I offer no apologies nor do I make excuses. It is what it is. Enjoy:

January 1, 1986

A bad day. I feel on the edge of losing control. I bore everybody - nobody is interested in me.

I must make a resolution to concentrate on my work and stop spending my time on unproductive activity.

I am my own best friend. I am on the threshold of achieving what I want. Can't let carelessness prevent me from obtaining my goals.

The ad isn't working. Just a bunch of loser(s) that I'm wasting my time, stamps, and telephone bills on. But I don't know what else to do. The bars are not a viable alternative, I go crazy in them. Joe is supremely indifferent to me. The arrogance (or is it immaturity) of youth. Forget that.

Perhaps I should just keep my mouth shut and go about rob-like ways - that seems to please jut about everyone (except me, and after all what do I matter?)

Time for a retreat Ron, at least temporarily. Go to it Ron!

Reading over this entry now twenty three years later it sounds like I was feeling mightily sorry for myself. I don't remember who this "Joe" was so he couldn't of been that important. The "ad" I referred to was a personal ad in the Philadelphia Gay News. I could write a book about that experience. Talk about people crawling out from under a rock.

One thing is for sure, I don't feel sorry for myself like I did back then. I have a different perspective on life now that I am older (approaching my seventh decade on this earth.) I'm thankful that I'm in reasonably good health, I am somewhat financially secure and I have a small but loyal and faithful circle of friends who like me just the way I am. All things considered, I am a pretty lucky guy. Still, it is interesting to go back in time and visit that other guy I call "Ron." What an interesting life he led.

Why I Blog

This evening Bill and I had dinner at our home with our good friend Bob C. While many subjects were covered, the subject of my blogging came up. Bob C. stated that he wouldn’t blog. He didn’t see the need for it. I understand that. Bill also doesn’t see the need for him to blog. I also understand why Bill doesn’t feel compelled to blog. I tried to explain to them why I like to blog. It’s very simple, I love to write. Both Bob and Bill said they don’t want the world to know about their lives. I’m different. I do want the world to know about my life. Some may see that as arrogant or selfish. I see it as a compelling need within me that I am required to fulfill.

While I’ve never had formal training in writing (and it shows), I have always had that need to write from the time I was a teenager. At one time I had 57 pen pals around the world. One of my special joys was to check my Post Office box (212) and see envelopes with the different postage stamps from my friends across the country and even some from foreign lands (Japan and Germany.) Looking back on it, I don’t remember anything special that I wrote about except my daily activities, much as I do now. But I did get a great deal of satisfaction from writing my letters and receiving them from my many friends from far away places.

When I joined the Army at 18 years old I had to give up most of my pen pals. I kept one, Nancy Jo Stoker of Waterloo, Iowa. I continued to write to her most of the three years I was in the Army, but at sometime I even let that correspondence lapse. While in the Army I received letters from my Mother, and my three best friends, Bill B., Larry M. and Bob Mc. I still have those letters. After I left the Army those correspondences ended.

In July of 1964 I met my life partner, Bill K. He lived in Pennsauken, New Jersey and I lived in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. We would meet on the weekends. During the week I would write him a letter….every day. I did that from July 1964 to March 1, 1965, when I moved in with him. He still has those letters. On occasion I have read those letters. The content was the same, an accounting my daily activities. It is interesting now to read what was my concerns back then in the 60’s. Also interesting is how my handwriting has changed over the years.

During a ten year period from 1972 to 1981 I kept a personal diary in one of those dated year books I purchased at the Woolworth store on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. I recorded the years I lived in center city Philadelphia. I faithfully recorded my daily activities in that diary. I would feel incomplete when I didn’t make a daily entry. It was rare that I missed a day. I stopped keeping a diary when an acquaintance, who I let stay in my apartment in Philadelphia, discovered them. This was someone who was homeless and I let stay in my apartment (which I had leased for a year while my house in Pennsylvania was being built) until he found another home. Unfortunately, I had to ask this person to leave my apartment when found out he was stealing from me. A few weeks later he attempted to blackmail me by divulging the contents of my diary. He was unsuccessful in his blackmail attempts but I did stop keeping my diary.

Last year, in July, I decided to start a daily diary (or journal as the cover of the book says) again. I’ve been making daily entries in it since that date. I can’t explain exactly why I feel this need to write. Maybe it’s because I’m at the end of my life now. I do know it gives me a feeling of completeness and that I matter. We all matter. All of us lead interesting lives. There are no dull lives. I often think that maybe someday in the future someone will read my journals and get a feel of what life was like here in the beginning of the 21st century. I read my journals that I kept back in the 70’s and I get the full flavor of what life was like in the 70’s. It was a wonderful time for me as a gay man in the full prime of my youth. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the 70’s were a time of liberation for gay men and women. With the onset of the 80’s and the AIDS epidemic my world changed forever. It was only by coincidence I had already decided to move from center city Philadelphia to a suburban home in Chester County, Pennsylvania. That period ended a chapter of my life.

The whole time I lived in Pennsylvania, twenty five years (from 1981 to 2006), I didn’t keep any journals of my life. That period of my life exists now only in my memory. No written record exists of it unless I decide to write about it before I pass from this earth.

Retiring and moving to Delaware is probably the last chapter of my life. This blog of mine, Retired in Delaware will give someone in the future of what life was like for this one person in Delaware. Some paint a beautiful picture and leave that as their legacy to the future. Some of those artists are not formally trained but their art is just as appreciated by many as well as full filling a personal need within themselves. While I may lack formal training, I forge ahead. Writing full fills a deep need within me. My writing is proof that I existed, that I mattered. Writing is my legacy to the future.