Thank you: At a quarter of a million and counting, it might be a movement

A Column and a hearty thank you by John Estridge, the Fired Editor

The blog, whitewatervalleynewsandsports.com, has just gone above the 250,000 views mark.

Actually, it is 253,000-plus at this writing.

That means the blog has been viewed more than a quarter of a million times in less than one year. I want to thank everyone who has come to the site to read or look at something.

It is not the easiest to navigate, and I am sorry, but with my technological IQ at about 12, it is truly a miracle this went live on the net in June of last year. And it is a recurring miracle that it remains on the air. Personally, and the small group of people around me who are friends, really know nothing of blogs. Even my friends who understand computers — software and hardware — say they know nothing about blogs.

Back after I got fired, people — family and friends — had suggested that I do a blog, but I really had no idea how someone did a blog. If truth be known, I really did not know what a blog was. And another confession, I really don’t know now. I just write articles and sometimes download photos and by hook or by crook I usually can get them on a page people can see.

But around 10 or 11 p.m., one Saturday evening into Sunday morning, June 6-7, I think, in the summer of our Pandemic year, I decided I was going to try to put a blog on the internet. I did what many people would do to accomplish this feat: I grabbed a bottle of Basil Hayden bourbon and I said a prayer.

Understandably, many people would see bourbon and prayer together as incongruous, but I did not then, do not now, probably will not in the future, and it worked. I do believe the prayer had more to do with my final success in the early morning hours, as I think it was around 3 a.m., than bourbon. But, really, when does bourbon actually hurt anything?

Somehow the blog was born.

My first entry was “What is the Whitewatervalleynewsandsports.com.” I was so very happy when that actually showed up, and I could call it up through a link. It was like magic. And the second was “About Me” I put a photo of myself on the second one; I had to figure that out also.

And even after people saw my photo, they actually came back to read more. They did not go running off into the night screaming or use it to scare little children. Well, I’m sure some did.

My goal that night was to have 5,000 views. Not 5,000 views a day, a week, a month or a year, but 5,000 views. Much to my shock by July and certainly by August, the average climbed to be more than 1,000 views a day.

Looking back on the early days of this blog, it is really hard to count the first month as legitimate as I was just beginning to feel my way and learning more every day by every mistake I made along the way.

During the years as the editor of the Brookville and Liberty papers, I often watched people, especially at lunch time in local restaurants, read the paper. This was prior to social media, but most of the people turned to the obituaries first, then classifieds and finally the news and/or sports, especially the latter if the reader was male.

Other than not having classifieds, the blog is much the same except for one classification, sports, even though it is part of the name.

Obituaries and things about criminal cases seem to get the most views. Much to my dismay, sports items do not attract many readers at all. When I was thinking about what the blog would be and then creating it, I thought sports would be a selling point. I enjoy writing sports articles and taking sports photos.

And I gleefully went out to sporting events in that first fall only to find very few people bothered to look at the articles even if I took the time to put dozens of photos of the community’s kids competing on the sports fields. So, I stopped going to sporting events to cover them.

It began to really surprise My Long Suffering Wife Ruth and me when we were out grocery shopping, at CVS or elsewhere, someone would come up and say they really liked my blog, and they had missed my writing. At first, Ruth thought I was somehow paying these people to say such things, and she got a little angry because she knew we could not afford it. But finally, she became to believe they were legitimately fans of the blog.

Recently, at a Brookville Town Council meeting, the Brookville Police Chief was upset with me and my blog. I think the purpose of his monologue at that time was to implore people to not read the blog. He said by people sharing the articles on my blog and making nice comments to me on the blog, they were fueling my blog and to stop doing it. Well, he is correct. You do fuel my blog by reading the articles, by making nice comments, and more importantly, by sharing them. Once they are shared, the articles get out to more people to possibly read and then maybe they want to read more. And, who knows, those new readers may want to share it and as Arlo Guthrie once said… “And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in Singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said Fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and Walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.”

Well, you don’t have to sing Alice’s Restaurant although you might make Arlo proud by belting out a few bars, but all you have to do is read articles, and they may think it’s a movement or something like that.

So, thank you Chief for the acknowledgement and the suggestion.

Again, I have been greatly humbled by the numbers. I have enjoyed talking with many people about the blog. And when you do stop Ruth and me to talk about the blog, we really do enjoy it even if we are still surprised by it.

I don’t really have any more statistical goals. I remain so surprised by this one.

If you have any suggestions, comments or anything, you can comment on the blog or send me an email at jestridge@yahoo.com

Thank you all again.

John, the Fired Editor