Happy 500 blog posts to me ...

Five Hundred. That's the number of blog posts I've written since Oct. 7, 2008, less than a week after I was laid off from a newspaper career spanning more than 30 years. I was one of thousands of journalists turned out by newspapers, broadcasters and other news media as revenues tanked in 2008. I started the blog as an outlet for my opinions and a means of keeping in touch with folks who had read my ramblings for years. This is the 500th entry in Erstwhile Editor, the blog that took up where my former Downing Street blog left off (and was summarily killed by the newspaper that had encouraged me to write it; it no longer exists in cyberspace).

To mark this occasion (I won't call it auspicious), I thought I'd look back at my blog posts, relive some of the news events or emotions that prompted those posts, and share with the few readers still turning to this blog on occasion some of the more memorable posts. I thought I'd compile a sort of "best of" the first 500 blog entries by Erstwhile Editor. But after spending nearly an hour just looking through the three months of entries in 2008, I decided covering the entire 22 months of blogging might be more ambitious a project than I want to tackle tonight.

Those first 91 entries in 2008 set the tone I had promised in my first post — random thoughts and analysis about politics, newspapers, literature, family and life. I wrote a good bit at first about being laid off. It was a new experience for me, but I was determined not to be bitter or vengeful. I found some quiet beauty in the solitude of an empty house during the workday. And I found some awkward moments when people expressed shock that I was no longer at the paper. But after several weeks, I fell into a new routine and had to remind myself not to get too comfortable. Losing a job, even with the support of family of friends, is traumatic, and I wrote about that, too. I gradually became accustomed to a new role with my wife as the breadwinner.

I also wrote about the profession I had given my working life to. I was sad, both personally and professionally, about the demise of newspapers. I still read the newspaper daily, but the news from the world of journalism was not good in 2008. Both national newspapers and local publications ran into trouble at the end of 2008. And while it seemed everyone else was getting a stimulus or a tax break, newspapers weren't.

But one unexpected topic got a lot of my attention at the end of 2008. My best friend from high school was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor a few months before I was laid off. I drove nearly 400 miles in one day to see him, bedridden by then, and share memories. Later, unexpectedly, I received the dreaded news. Days later, I drove down for the memorial service and shared more memories with people I'd lost track of over the years. This blog took a turn I had not expected when I started, but I wanted to write about life, and death is part of that. I attended another funeral during those last months of 2008. It was sad but uplifting and inspiring, setting just the right tone for a requiem for a man of faith.

I followed the 91 posts of 2008 with 294 in 2009. I slowed down a bit when I took a job near the end of that year (after a year out of work), but I've still managed to write 500 blog posts in less than two years. I never had pretensions or great hopes for this blog, and it has lived up to low expectations. It was little more than an outlet for my thoughts and opinions. In that regard, 500 posts and 22 months later, it has served its purpose.