Few milestones hit home with the ring of pleasure as a million cheers. A humble thanks to one and all.
It’s Official: One Million AD Reader/Visitors Have Passed My Way...
Who Would Have Guessed it?
Sixteen years is a very limited number when measured while on the treadmill of life. That time frame encloses how long I’ve been associated with AuthorsDen. According to the flawless record-keeping maintained by AD, it was 2008 when I penned my first composition and posted it here. During the 50 years prior to that time, I likely wrote as much, but over a longer stretch of time. Still, here I am just 1,177 postings later. I won’t comment on the quality of that body of work, rather on a few of the struggles, and a couple of revelations that have floated my way.
What caught me by surprise was the realization that each of us has a “hit” counter as part of our AD web pages. That’s a small software cookie inserted by the AD munchkins that lets us know how many unique visitors have stopped by our hallowed pages. A fellow writer tipped me off about the counters maybe 5 years ago. Well, yesterday, my hit counters passed the one million visitor mark. Yes, I am aware that others have surely surpassed that number many moons ago. I was very late in the game to begin my countable tenure. Still, it’s a goal that I never set, but one that is worth sharing with my equally humble writers. And so, here’s to the best writer’s group of friends and cohorts I never met, to the most sincere and talented readers on Earth, and to my former graduate school professors (may they rest in peace) who couldn’t write their way across the street with a very wide paint brush and a set of velvet-lined knee pads!
I will celebrate tonight with a large glass of Riesling (maybe 2), made from grapes grown on the banks of the Mosel River, squeezed through the toes of virgin maidens (who don’t visit me anymore); and to that obscure Englishman, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who gave Cardinal Richelieu the honor of reciting words that he never could have uttered without a gifted writer to put them in his mouth… “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword.”
I still prefer to hear the challenge raised to the level of saintly brotherhood by one of the most gifted orators or all time: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” (Horace Mann, c. 1854). He was challenging the hero in us, my fellow writers. We still have a few more mountains to climb, and more sunsets to raise our glasses to. And so...write on!
Congratulations on your accomplishment. I'll raise a glass of Riesling to you! Authors Den has been a fun place to hang out with other indy writers and see what all of you have done and are doing. Ed, your writings have helped me understand economics and made me aware of the schemes of which the very rich take full advantage.
I'm so glad you stayed and persevered because your writing is so powerful and so useful for the leaders of our country if they would only pay attention. May you continue onward for many more years.
Although I've had my website since 1997, I never put a counter on it so don't have an accurate count of what or who came, I'm very grateful to AD for such accurate accounting and the willingness to keep my entries all here for others to read for the duration of my stay here and beyond? Some of the deceased still have their work here being read.
I actually started coming by about 2002, only on Sundays, missing a lot of what was going on in the early years until I got a life membership around 2006.
It is certainly humbling to know that 1,638,813 have visited my pages here since they started keeping count in 2003.
Your last paragraph says so much about you, the writer, the energizer, the well-read informer, the heart and mind of a warrior... that's you, my friend. Hope to read you for another 12 years. That will make me 100 and climbing. Hell, Dick VanDyke is 98 and just got a Daytime Emmy. Warriors don't die. They merely trade their weapons of staying alive in for peace and relaxation. Man, I wonder if the digital world and AI will let us get there????
What? Just looked up my own: 1,618,786. I joined AD on August 14, 2008. So, we've both been at it for a long time. Guess we both deserve a couple of imbibing trips, eh?
