So I’ll do it a bit late.
Every time I come up on some calendar milestone, even if it doesn’t really matter that much to me, I mean to mention it on the blog because that’s just what you’re supposed to do when you have a blog. And every time, it comes and goes and I forget to do my duty.
For example: five days ago, on November sixth, I passed exactly 15 years full time residence in the Gulch. Cue balloons and party poppers.
There, I did it.
Life is short. But the years are long. – RAH
You have accomplished something! Look around you. Do you see any other full-timers who have been there longer?
What no champagne?! Congratulation, you have made yourself a very nice home. Here’s to 15 more healthy years.
Yeah, one who’s geographically close. But she got old and sick and I think her family sort of forced her out this year. Judging from the position of cars she’s planning to come back, but who knows: Once you get old and sick you don’t last long here.
Farther away there’s a couple of guys who have been here considerably longer than me, and I know of a family with quite a spread that’s obviously been here forever but I never met any of them.
So, a few.
Given how few of us made it even a year or two … and given that your initial living circumstances were so very, very much more dire than those of any of the other relatively long-timers, 15 years is even a bigger deal than it seems.
I was there in the beginning and I can assure any incredulous readers that during at least one of those early winters (and probably several of them) in the temporary lair, it really was a contest between whether Joel was more likely to catch scurvy or freeze to death in his sleep. Back in those days he wasn’t as connected as he is now and he was much more reluctant to let anyone know he needed help.
Kudos to you, Joel, for making it this far.