Why Now?

Johnny Carson died last Sunday. I found out early Monday morning as I walked my dog Greta and picked up the Wall Street Journal. It was my 59th birthday. If I'm Johnny Carson that could mean I've got 20 years left. I'll come back to this thought later.

Several months ago my brother Mark started a blog site called Unsolitited Opinions. I read his postings as they appear. It's an easy way to stay in touch with what he's thinking about. I really admire his writing ability on the topics he's posted. He has a column about the similarities and differences between Vietnam and Iraq that only a war vetran could write. Even if I don't agree with all his opinions I appreciate observations along with his ability to articulate and defend them.

Last year Mark also sent me copies of a journal our Mother kept from 1939 until 1948. They looked more like a series of letters to a dear friend although we haven't really figured out who it is yet. She died over 25 years ago, and the time period of her journal is from about the time she met my Father until after Mark was born. It is fascinating for me to read her thoughts and feelings as she fell in love, waited for WWII to end, got married, and had 2 children. It covers only a 9 year span of her life, but it covers a time I never really got to know. I certainly have some idea of her last 30 years, but 1939--1948, hell I wasn't even in the world until 1946.

Anyway these events combined with my own ability to articulate my thoughts, write well BUT not really share my innermost feelings with even those I should be close to led me to create my own site. I don't know how it will evolve, but it's a place to start. I named it Saddleview because I spend a lot of time on my bicycle, and a fair amount of that is by myself where lots of thoughts and feelings pass by. Hopefully it will let me express myself to anyone who might be interested.

Now back to the intro. Johnny Carson took over the Tonight Show from Jack Paar in 1962 about a month before my Father died. My parents watched the Tonight Show a lot once we got a TV. For some reason as long as Johnny was around I felt a kind of connection to my parents. Even though they were gone the Tonight Show was something they watched religiously. Carson became a TV icon and legend. I would regularly watch Carson's monolgue and a portion of the show depending upon the guests. When he left the show in 1992 he became a very private person. There's obviously a ton of stuff that will forever reamain for us to play over and over now that he's gone. Johnny Carson strikes me as a person very dedicated to his profession, but intensely private even when he was in the public eye. I think of myself as being very dedicated to my work (both as an insurance agent and a cycling coach) and I am intensely private about my deep inner self. I'll probably never leave the reams of material for public viewing that Johnny Carson did, but now I have taken a first step.