Huckleberry’s End

While I reserve the right to change my mind, I’ve decided to retire the Spring City Chronicle on October 30, 2009.  Lest you think this a knee-jerk reaction to something, I actually wrote the first draft of this post on a dark, gloomy, rainy Saturday afternoon (NFL draft day) in April. I’ve added quite a bit, changed the title (it was originally named “500 Days Left for the Chronicle”), moved the date back from election day 2010 (which would have been close to 500 days away and accounts for why I chose 6/20/09 to announce my plans) because I’m eager to quit now that I’ve decided to quit, but the decision has been well thought out.

If you are counting, it’s 132 days from today, which may seem like a long time from now. But time moves quickly when you get to be my age. It’s but a wink and a whisper away for me. I considered several dates. I thought about pulling the plug immediately. I thought about going to a once-a-week post but knew that I would never be able to stay at once per week and I’d soon be back to posting daily. Finally, I chose 10/30/09 because it would mark the end of my current web domain subscription. I strongly considered election day 2010 for reasons I will get to later, but I can’t see doing this any longer. When a hobby becomes a chore, it’s time to get a new hobby.

Another reason is that I am considering going back full-time to work, to recover some of the resources lost to the stock market decline. While I’m not eager to give up my free time, neither do I want to be concerned about money when I am no longer able to work. Four or five more years perhaps wouldn’t kill me. I have the opportunity to tweak the retirement plans I made the last time I was looking forward to retirement. Besides, I always have the option to quit and still have no worse than I have now. In any case, I couldn’t do a full-time job and the Chronicle at the same time.

In addition, I think blogging has passed its zenith and has been eclipsed by Twitter. One thing I’ve noticed about living this long is that human beings’ attention span is getting shorter. Everything is being condensed to an executive summary. Baseball, which requires 3 hours of attention from a watcher and a full day of work from a player, is dying. Kids don’t want to devote six hours to game day plus two hours’ practice two-three times per week.  Hence the rise of timed sports, like basketball and soccer. Get us in and get us out.

A newspaper or magazine takes too long and requires too much attention to read, so they are dying. Give us everything I need to know in the first 10 minutes. Take the top five stories from today’s Freeman, give us a link and your commentary. We don’t need to read the want ads or advertisements or filler pieces. The internet killed the newspaper. Now Twitter is killing the blog. Give us a link and no more than a 140 character comment on a subject. Beware, Twitter fans, there will be something coming even more concise which will kill Twitter as well. Receivers for neuro-transmissions, perhaps. Instantaneously receive the thoughts of someone else or a billion someone elses. We are condensing our world to a singularity and all the time we save is somehow wasted and I know not where it goes. Technology has passed me by. I have no interest in Twittering or tweeting or whatever its called. I hardly ever remember to turn on my cell phone, so an IPhone or Blackberry is out of the question. Blogging got me to exercise my writing muscles. The only creative ones I had.

No doubt some of you are thinking, “Why don’t you just go now? Don’t let the door hit you in the butt.” Since I paid for the room, I’m staying until the end. It’s my obsessive nature not to let anything go to waste. Still, it’s OK for you not to care one way or another.

I don’t think I’m being over-dramatic when I say that the year 2010 is going to be highly significant to human history. Locally, a mayoral election will decide if voters like Larrytown or whether they’d like to see someone else have a chance. A gubernatorial election will set Wisconsin’s future on a path either to a continuing upward spiral of state spending on special interests and oppressive taxes or sanity and common sense. National elections will decide if this country will continue on a path to a central government-controlled communist government or a return to free-market capitalism. So it seems that 2010 will either be the end of the Republican Party or the beginning of a period of retraction for Liberalism/Socialism/Communism/Progressivism. You can’t kill it, it’s like a weed. In either case, it will determine how we will greet the apocalypse in December 2012.

There you have it. From now through the end of October, things will pretty much stay as they are now. You won’t notice much change, for better or worse. Whatever thoughts I have after 10/30/09 will remain my own from then on. It will go back to being between me and the cat. Will I regret my decision? You know what? I always have the option of starting it up again. While I may still quit tomorrow, at least now I have a target date if I don’t. Thanks for reading.