Yes, a year has really passed since I first started blogging. I’m celebrating this event by drinking an extra glass of milk today, heh, heh.
Although most of my blog visitors hail from locations within the territorial United States, I have noted guests from intriguing places such as Bons-Tasilly, Basse-Normandie France; Ulaanbaatar Mongolia; Bangalore, Karnataka India; Mordialloc, Victoria, Australia; Fung Wong Village, Hong Kong; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Nutts Corner, Antrim, United Kingdom, Seoul, Seoul-t’ukpyolsi Korea, and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.
Even some of the home towns of my American visitors sound exotic, such as Ronkokoma, New York; Village of Nagog Woods, Massachusetts; and Flower Mound, Texas.
During the past six months, the most popular article has been “New Hampshire’s Native Americans: Hiding in Plain Sight,” with “Manchester New Hampshire’s Marine Corps Iwo Jima Flag Raiser, Rene Arthur Gagnon (1925-1979)” coming in at a close second. The most popular article about a woman was regarding Tasha Tudor.
I’ve pretty much resisted the urge to jump on the political bandwagon in order to raise my blog’s popularity–I include links to NH political blogs of various parties even if I don’t agree with them; I don’t normally mention politics or politicians (except for here, here, and here), unless they are dead politicians.
I’ve stayed on topic (New Hampshire history or genealogy) except for a few side steps into the realm of blonde bombshells (aka Anna Nicole Smith), and the World of Wii.
Reasons For Me to Celebrate Cow Hampshire’s Success:
1. The number of daily visitors has almost doubled in six months (and probably would have been higher if I hadn’t used naughty words).
2. I am not running out of topics to write about. Upcoming articles will include information about additional NH slanguage words (such as spiffy); glossary words (lithobolia, lamprey, and whetstone); missing places (Gosport and Pannaway); interesting New Hampshire people you’ve probably never heard of (Jack McQuesten, and Alice Ericson Cosgrove), and several surprising topics that will remain a mystery for now.
3. Google and other major search engines are regularly indexing my blog. When my blog topics are used as search keywords, the results often list my blog articles as one of their top ten resources.
My original goal for this blog was to make history interesting and fun for my readers. I believe I’ve accomplished this. Perhaps the most unforeseen benefit of blogging has been the new friends I have made. I am grateful to those who consistently support my blogging efforts by reading and posting here.
[Apologies… I appreciate everyone who has ever commented here, but for brevity’s sake I am limiting the “friends links” below to frequent, recent commenters (during the last 3 months), or those who often mention me on their own blogs. They are all top-notch bloggers or writers, so I heartily encourage you to visit them.]
— Chris Dunham of The Genealogue, and All Things Maine.
— David Brooks of Granite Geek.
— Ernesto Burden of Ernesto Burden.
— Omnipotent Poobah of Omnipotent Poobah.
— Amy Kane of Atlantic Ave.
— Paul Sand of Pun Salad.
— Ken Young of Kenyo Of Pensacola.
— The blog owner of New Hampshire State of Mind.
— TJ of Better Living Through Chemistry.
— Ron Cillizza of seventwentythree, and Dujour Photographs.
— El Sherman of, well, B. Elwin Sherman.
I’m always looking for interesting topics to blog about, so if you have a burning question, ask away. If you are wondering about my choice of photographs, the one shown in this blog entry was taken in 1959. I’m the skinny little girl on the right. My grandmother Addie stands behind me, and my twin sister Kathi is to my right. We are standing in front of one of the “warping mirrors” as we are visiting Pine Island Park, a mainstay of Manchester NH entertainment at that time. Unfortunately this park is no longer in existence, nor are the two beloved people who appear in the photograph with me.
Best Wishes,
Janice
