I Built This Blog

I am proud to say that I built this blog from the ground up.

As I shared yesterday, it is one of my greatest life fantasies to have the Daily News do an interview with me and write a story headlined, "Local Man Writes Own Blog." That may or may not happen, in part depending on my tenacity in getting the job done and in part depending on my strong faith.

Whether there is the glory of a Daily News feature story on me, I will continue to be proud of all I have done here. It is certain that not just anyone could have done it. It took someone with particular skills, a particular outlook, and the ability to draw in the different threads of experience and expressiveness to write a good blog like this.

Sometimes I ask myself how I was able to do it. In wracking my brain and coming up with an answer that is both honest and inspirational, let me say first it wasn't easy. I saw up close the same hurdles that everyone else sees. I saw the same temptation to give up that stares everyone in the face. And I didn't have to do it. But I did, and for that I remain proud.

Of course I have a daily source of inspiration in a very special lady, "Grandma Slump" herself. Playing the part of Grandma Slump is Mother Kendall, and hasn't she done an marvelous job? More or less forgotten, Mother Kendall left behind one known photograph and a whole lotta love. Her loving vibe comes to me through the ether. No doubt long dead in terms of her earthly life, Mother Kendall still inspires, having assumed the role of Grandma Slump here on earth. Perhaps Mother Kendall lived 80 years -- I don't know. But today she lives on as a occasionally robust 104-year-old woman, who takes no guff from me, who plays her single grandson. A big shout out to Mother Kendall, everyone!

That's a part of the inspiration. And inspiration is always a big part of any equation. But you know, they say it's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration that carries things through. If 99% of the time you're sweating, then you are sweating an awful lot. And that's what I do. Daily I sweat as I put forth this blog.

It took a lot to come up with the great concept. It takes a lot to get the ideas, to develop them, and to present them in a way that adequately fulfills my goals. There are obviously lots of things I could be doing with my time. I could be reading and bettering myself. Just today I saw a couple of scholarly books for sale, one by Immanuel Kant and one on the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. But when I looked through those books, my eyes immediately glazed over, and I told myself, 'Why waste your time sweating over that, which you wouldn't understand anyway? If you want to know something about that stuff, which you don't, look it up on Wikipedia. Instead, you spend your time with ideas for this blog. That's what people want. And that's what you want.'

Now, please give me a moment as I metamorphose back into my personna as Grandma Slump's grandson.

The Daily News at this point doesn't know that a local man conceived and created this blog. But were they to know, I'm sure they would be amazed. It would not take them long -- this is my conviction -- to beat a path to my door for an exclusive interview. The reporters would look at our little house, and Grandma resting quietly in the bed, and would wonder how I did it with such modest means. I would instruct them that it's not a man's means that makes the difference, but a man's spirit. The dirt poorest man can still be a prince, under the right circumstances, a few lucky breaks, meeting the right girl, and somehow tricking her dad.

My spirit is such that a blog like this, while a challenge, is also a labor of love. And that labor of love will continue.

Whether the story ever materializes -- "Local Man Writes Own Blog" -- or whether I am condemned to write in solitary obscurity, write I will! This blog. This single blog. This single great blog, which I myself built from the ground up. A blog that I am proud of and should be proud of -- today and always.