I should probably get a Twitter account or something instead of using my blog for announcements, but I just don't want to be any more connected than I am. This is a quick blog to explain why I may not have answered or responded to something you sent me.

First, I'll tell you that Boston was really fun. Philly was great, too. I went there the night before the train because it made life easier, and I am all for easier. The kids came, but not to the hotel - I had forgotten what it was like not to have to bring juice and fruit snacks to a hotel room. It was a little weird that no one jumped on the bed or kept begging to order room service. We did get to see a lot of stuff about Ben Franklin, his house and some of the things he did.

And I found out that I really, really like being on a train. I sat in the cafe car by random chance and I got a whole table to myself and with no one around, I was able to write without anybody interrupting. I think I might just go around and buy train tickets and ride to nowhere so I can hang out and write while watching New England go by. (Of course, they also serve beer on Amtrak which I had not realized, and by Providence, there was singing...)

Ben Franklin was in Boston, too. He had a house there also and did wonderful, patriotic things like he had done in Philly. In fact, I crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge to get to my hotel in Philly, and it was on Ben Franklin Boulevard.

But I am really behind -- I have a ton of emails in my mailbox that I haven't gotten to. I will get to them. I had to write a new curriculum when I got back, then there was a full day of work, and I just got home from jury duty about an hour ago. I was selected as a juror, which surprised me because I told them that I don't really watch tv and I read teen fiction in my spare time. I figured they would think I was way to weird to make an informed decision, but no...so I spent most of the day in the suspended animation of a courthouse, but at least the trial is done and I am back.

Tomorrow, Thursday, is another full day of work, so I promise Friday I will be back to write back and come visit your blog.

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as
you are dead, either write things worth
reading or do things worth writing."

Thus wrote Benjamin Franklin in what seems to have been a reflective moment. How could those who lived in Franklin's time know just how their actions (and the way those actions were recorded) would change the future? How do any of us know how what we do now will make a difference?

Could Franklin's dictum have been advice given to young up and comers in his day to either do something that might change history or the live of others--or to write about it?

Maybe not. But his thought does raise an essential question for those of us engaged in the art of writing. If the fact that something notable was done is not recorded in some way, will it exist beyond the immediate memory of those who saw it done? Perhaps writing about such things is the literary equivalent of taking note of the proverbial tree falling in the forest.

The significance of the written word is that it becomes the de facto record of what has happened or might happen, whether in fact or only in the creative minds of human kind. So, pick up your pens, cuddle your keyboards and capture what is going on around you or in the lives of the tantilizing characters you create. Will you write poetry, a journal, an essay, an article or a book? Will it be fiction or the real McCoy? Will you entertain or incite? Will you satirize reality, giving life a funny face?

And, by the way, who is your audience? After all is said (whether done or not), will anyone read what you have so meticulously recorded? Will what you have written become its own version of the tree falling in the forest?

Perish the thought! Because thinking that thought may be enough to put an end to the writing. And that we can ill afford. So, take heart, my friend, and keep writing. Make every word count as a grand, bold, essential step forward. toward preserving who we are and what we have done.

Now, Maestro, please! The Crescendo!