One of the blogs I have read religiously, Time Goes By, is shutting down. I always felt that Ronni Bennett spoke for me. She tackled issues I often thought about, but was too lazy to write about. She was eloquent in a way I could never manage. I am disappointed that I will no longer have Ronni Bennett as my spokesperson, and I am disappointed in Ronni for giving up.
Of course, this is the pot calling the kettle black. How many times have I given up in frustration. I’ve been trying to change the world for more than half a century. The world has changed; I can’t take any credit for it, good or bad. I was one of the mothers marching against the war in Vietnam. After being photographed by the FBI a jillion times and suffering many insults and frustrations, I gave up. The war ended, but I never felt I had anything to do with it. One of the things I learned painfully, as I grew older: never giving up pays off.
Ronni has dealt with so many important issues in her blog, most recently raising an alarm about a new attempt by our government to curtail our First Amendment rights. Her research and her arguments about this resurgence of witch hunting and McCarthyism are powerful. I lived through the McCarthy era. It affected me psychologically, and affected the livelihood of several of my relatives. I am dismayed to think I might have to witness another period of this nastiness. Read about it here.
The last straw for Ronni was the response she got to a post titled "Is There Really Nothing Golden About Getting Old?" I didn’t see that post until it was too late to respond, so I will tell her now: the golden part of getting old for me, is that I am completely comfortable in my old skin. I am who I am; I cannot pretend to be anyone else, not even a little bit. It is golden for me that I have learned to be patient, to follow my inner voice, to not let the "bastards get me down."
100 Books Before I Die 
You’re right with that last comment about winning in spite of quitting sometimes, Mage! And I like what Stacie said about the important thing is what’s going inside of you. Reading Ronni’s blog also introduced me to a lot of people who seemed to feel the same way I did, and what a blessing that was after living in so many states whose collective political stances were NOT, and here in Utah still aren’t, my own.
Yes, I admired her for starting and keeping that blog. Then, out of the blue she informs us that she had been “thinking about” ending the blog. Now she ended the blog. Kapoof. Bam. And I am very sad.
It’s her blog, and if she’s tired of doing it, there’s nothing we can do. I feel she’s burned out and over reacted instead of letting it all go. So we have to let her and her’s go. Gee, it was an awful good “hers.”
I too marched….for several things. Only recently did I discover that Nixon had a Student List. Now I knew how I got on his list. For years I wondered how and why. It appears there was no why. If you apposed him, that was why enough. To me, this feels as if I have been successful. And I shoveled. To save a slough, I shoveled….and those involved can say they saved the Tijuana Sloughs which now is Border Park, A California State Park. Sometimes everything I vote for goes down to defeat…even me at times. Even if we quit, sometimes we win. š
Off to visit Duck.
And by the way…I love reading about your life…your experiences and everything…just wanted to let you know.
Well, this is terrible news…I really liked her site too.
You know…everything that you do that furthers your ideas about how things should be act as a ripple through the world. It matters and it makes a difference. A big difference. I like getting older. I am not “old” yet…but seems to me that my life gets better, and a lot funnier. Could be the attitude you bring with you everyday, but the older I get, the more I understand some things, and ultimately, no matter what goes on outside of me…the most important is what goes on inside of me.