"....O Brave new world That hath such people in't!" (The Tempest)

....If anyone is interested, this is Post #403 of this blog in the Home of the Red Baron. That translates to my having written a post every day on this blog for one year, plus some more. Of course, I haven't done that. Actually, the first time Red Baron began this blog was on August 8, 2007. It was called "Tale of a Tail Gunner". I had just had my first book published, "Memoirs of a Tail Gunner," which I believed to be the final "big" goal of my life. After all, when you've passed 80 how many goals can you have the time or the right to achieve? Little did I realize that all of these almost daily "essays" would eventually be contained in five volumes called "Pater Noster (our father) in Condoland" .

.....For the benefit of my future descendants (should I have any) who may one day wish to attempt the same goals of their great, great grandfather, these goals were to read all of Shakespeare, to earn a Doctorate degree, to run in two 26+ mile marathons, to take a year to travel around the world, and to write and publish a book. Of course, it took a while to do all of this, and now I'm paying the penalty--I'm exhausted.

.....Speaking of Shakespeare there was a story in today's USA TODAY with the headline, "What would Shakespeare tweet?" The article also sported a large picture of the Bard. Now, I'm not a tweeter myself. I belong to Facebook, and My Space, and Plaxo, and I'm not really interested in those things and I have no desire to tweet on Twitter. The article's point was that there's an art to writing on Facebook or Twitter, and no one cares that you're "eating a sandwich." Not so long ago, people used to keep diaries to record their quotidian doings, says the author, Maria Puente. Of course diaries are supposed to be private, as my blog attempted to be before it morphed into a journal--which I guess is not so private. Now, people update their status daily, hourly, even minute-by-minute, and almost nothing is private. In addition, most status updates are not always compelling reading: Feeding the cat, Watching TV, Eating a tuna sandwich. Even Samuel Pepys in the 17th Century could only close his diary with "And so to bed." Of course, writing is an art form, and in order to write good blogs, a writer has to know how to involve his or her audience, how to be imaginative, how to engage humor, how to write a complete and grammatical English sentence--and more.

.....I'm not convinced that I've been able to do all that. At times, I get discouraged that the point I've attempted to make is miserably misunderstood and then I get comments or e-mails taking me to task. It is extremely difficult to make your side of a discussion understood in the written word; orally and face to face, it's much simpler...intonation plays an important part, as well as an occasional smile. Since my blog has gotten me into more trouble than I can handle, more often than I would like, I have decided to conclude it. I can always take up needlepoint. (But then I would hear complaints that I missed a stitch.)