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Monday, July 14, 2008

Respecting Our Elders


While doing research for another of my blogs, I discovered that there are literally millions of blogs with only a single entry. Someone started the process of creating a new blog, posted a single entry, then abandoned it [in the name of full disclosure, I've walked away from a blog or two under similar circumstances in my lifetime]. I don't know why it happens, of course, but I suspect that those orphaned blogs were given up because the writer wasn't fully committed to the idea of blogging. Then there are blogs that are abandoned due to circumstances beyond the author's control.
For instance, the blog of Olive Riley [no relation], in Australia. The Life Of Riley began in February of 2007, when Ms. Riley was 107. Yeah. 107. A story about her blog is here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080714/lf_nm_life/blogger_oldest_dc. She posted, on average, once a week, until she was admitted to a nursing home late last month. She was also submitting videos to YouTube, where she sang and told stories. When she died over the weekend, at 108, she was acknowledged as the oldest blogger in the history of the activity.
Many people think of blogging as a younger person's form of expression. We don't check ID when you enter this site, but I'd be willing to wager that, at 50, I'm older than many, if not most, of my readers. While it's hard for me to feel wise most of the time, I can only imagine the wisdom Olive brought to her posts. Maybe it's time for us all to look for experienced muses...

Our condolences to Olive Riley's family in Australia, and her devoted readers around the world.

-Mike Riley

7 comments:

Laura Brown said...

After 9 11 I found a few blogs abandoned by people who died in the collapse of the buildings. Those were eerie to read.

Anonymous said...

Have you heard of Don Crowdis? He's 95. He had an earlier, very popular Blogger blog too. There are quite a few blogs by older people now, though I suppose it rather depends on your definition of older. I hear people these days (or perhaps they always did) worrying about reaching 30. It never worried me, nor did 40. It was 50 that destroyed me and I still haven't really managed to recover, all these years later.:)

Beamer said...

Not that I have ever been here before, but I am glad to admit being 52.

Beamer

Patricia Rockwell said...

I too had read about Olive. Grandma Julia is an alive-and-kicking blogger at 90! These ladies give us 60-year-old youngsters something to aim for! Nice to see a man joining the crowd. You are right, we need more older and wiser bloggers.

Anonymous said...

You know I will admit that before my current 3 blogs, I did the same, I think there were a total of around 3 attempts at blogging before my current successful attempt.

Personally I think (for me at least) it came out of the fact that I was too young and too immature (as I am only 22 now). As I had not matured I started the blog but then got the feeling of "Meh, I can't be bothered". I have now been blogging for a little under a year and I am still going strong.

And the one thing that I really love about blogging is, age is not a factor, for example people of all ages read my blog and I read the blogs of people of all ages. I think it really bridges a gap between generations, and that is something that I am grateful for ;).

Stuart

Kim said...

hi Mike...
Olive lived just down the road from me and I remember meeting her at an art exhibition where her portrait was exhibited...(a few years ago)
she was very spritely and it was a pleasure meeting her...
it's nice to see the generation gap disappear when it comes to blogging...

Jaya said...

Age (youth) check:
I'm 53...