Fun Monday - Why do you do it?

Our host this week is BeeDancer, who came up with this challenge:

I'm relatively new to blogging, & I'm sure this has come up before, but I'd really like to know WHY you blog. Tell me how you got started or why you got started and why you keep it up. Plus there's a photo requirement: Post a picture of the one person/place/thing that most symbolizes the town or area where you live.

You're right, BeeDancer, it has come up before, but I don't mind telling you because sometimes I need to remind myself!

THIS is why I blog.

When ZBoy was very small, I gave his grandparents (my in-laws) a journal and asked them to write down stories of their childhoods, things they remembered about living in rural Ohio, about joining the Army, about raising kids in the 50s... anything that would tell my boy who they were - because I realized that by the time he would be interested and really care to know, they might not be around anymore. It never happened. It made me sad, but I also realized that one day he might want to know who I was, what I thought about and what was going on in our lives when he was a child (I remember very little before the age of 10 or so myself).

So I started this blog after hearing about blogging from my friend Alice in Wonderbread. It was hard to get in the habit of journal-keeping again, but now I'm hooked on it.

Which brings me to another reason that I blog. The friends I have made. Who knew I would be corresponding with people all over the world? That one of my best buddies would live in Australia, or another in England or Seattle even? Blogging has turned me into a global citizen without the passport, the expensive flights or hotels, because it seems I know someone almost everywhere!

In keeping with that thought, my friend Karisma (one of my Aussies!) has bestowed this amazing award upon me:
“This blog invests and believes in ‘proximity’ [meaning that blogging makes us 'close' - being close through proxy].”

That sentiment is it exactly. Closer to my son in the future, close to my worldwide friends now. And now, I am supposed to bestow this award on eight blogs I feel that fulfill the promise of proximity in my life!

Hoosier Girl
The World According to Liane
S. William Shaw
Oh, The Joys
Stepping Over the Junk
A Florida Journal
Pure Florida
The Alternative Anna

This is by no means a complete list of bloggers that make me feel close, but Karisma included quite a few of mine in HER list and I didn't want to duplicate.

Go check out the rest of the participants for Fun Monday this week at BeeDancer's and have a great week!

UPDATE: Oops! I almost forgot about the second part of the challenge! When most people think of Tallahassee, this is what comes to mind:

This is the old State Capitol. My grandmother worked here as a clerk for the House of Representatives. Her immediate boss was Alan Morris, who is well known in this neck of the woods.

The old Capitol was pretty small, and Florida's government was getting pretty big, so in the 70's they built what is still called "the NEW Capitol" right behind the "Old Capitol". In a rather unfortunate design, the "new" Capitol, with the domed Senate and House office buildings on either side looks rather like the architect was shooting a bird at the whole state. There were many jokes for a long, long time about this, but after nearly 30 years, the joke seems to have worn off - we're used to the State giving us the finger.

These charming fellows are a recent addition. The dolphin fountain on the back side of the capitol is a beautiful thing to behold, and tourists ALL want their pictures taken with the dolphins!

I grew up here and while the Capitol has been a centerpiece for this town, Tallahassee also associates itself closely with another landmark about 30 miles south of the Capitols:

The Saint Marks Lighthouse, located in the Saint Marks Wildlife Refuge. It is unmanned now (though still operational), but when my mother was a girl, a family lived in the adjoining house and a lighthouse keeper ran the light. Everyday, she rode the bus down the dirt road to the lighthouse to collect the children for school. Mom lived in Newport, which at the time was a ship-building town, and the lighthouse was about 10 miles away. Long bus ride. These days, Newport is pretty much a boat ramp, a campground and a small bridge crossing the St. Marks River since Outz's Oysters burned down about 10 years ago.