TODAY: Ten Years Of JMG

Today is the TENTH blogiversary of this here website thingy. As is tradition for today, here is my very first post.

April 29th, 2004

I was born and raised in rural North Carolina.

My fondest childhood memory is of playing in the dense, acrid, poison fog that was belched out by the county mosquito control truck during its daily dusk-time trip down our dirt road.

The cry of "Smokey! Smokey!" would fly up and down Nine Foot Road once the first faint sound of the pest control truck's generator was detected in the distance. Trailer screen doors would slam open and kids would pour into the street for ten minutes of gleeful, giddy, mad dashing around in the thick white clouds of DDT. We would smash into each other with full force in the blinding swirls and just scream and laugh hysterically, pick ourselves up and start running again. Parents had not a whit of concern about their children playing directly behind the spewing pipes of a pest control truck. In fact, NOT being allowed to play in the poison fog was often held out as potential punishment for misbehavior.

I think this explains a lot about me.

A full decade. 45,537 posts, counting this one, and we're closing in on 100M pageviews. It doesn't seem possible, does it?  I very much appreciate all of you being here for these last ten years. We lost our most beloved JMG community member just a few months ago, but the reaction to Beeblemeyer's passing only underscored to me what a truly fantastic group we've created here. You are all activists, you are all family.

To celebrate ten years of JMG, we'll be holding a reader meet-up in New York City during Pride week when many of you out-of-town folks will be here. Details on that party will come shortly and I hope many of you can be there. In meantime, help yourself to some well-deserved punch and cookies. Please don't let the cat out.

And onward to JMG year eleven.