March 26, 2007 -- it was a different world. Radio dominated our lives (television had yet to be invented), President Calvin Coolidge presided over the goldenest year of the decade, Babe Ruth was preparing for an epic season that would see him...
Oh, wait, that was March 26, 1927. My bad.
March 26, 2007 -- it was a different world. Twitter was still just emerging from its egg while the universally beloved Tiger Woods prepared for the Masters, and our watchdog media, ever vigilant, declared that the sub-prime risk was much lower for big banks.
Yes, there was this new thing called "blogs," of which -- if you can even believe this -- there were only seventy million as of August 2007. Ridiculous, I know. Always in tune with the latest breaking trends, one intrepid fishing historian decided to jump into the shallow end of the pool and start the first fishing blog dedicated to preserving fishing history and disseminating fishing news. Apparently, only 120,000 people had the exact same idea of starting a blog on the exact same day.
Well over a million words, a thousand posts, a half million visitors from 100+ countries and nearly a million page views later, we are still here. Exhausted, but still alive and kicking. And according to Alexa, Fishing for History is currently the fifth largest fishing blog in the world. Yikes. Perhaps that's a comment on the fishing blogosphere more than anything else.
Of course, it is not just me who should celebrate this achievement. Over the course of three years, over a hundred people have contributed in the form of guest articles, features, photos, etc. I can't possibly list everyone but you know who you are. A few, however, stand out for their exceptional (and welcome) contributions. They include Wild Bill Sonnett, who gives us the awesome "Deconstructing Old Ads" on Saturdays, Dick Streater, who contributed a host of "Thought of the Week," and Doug Jobe, Peter Nilsen, Warren Platt and others who contributed to "1000 Words."
Three years is not a very long time when it comes down to it, but in the world of blogs it is a true milestone. Trust me when I say how incredibly difficult it can be to stay motivated to do this day in and day out. I started thinking I'd do it once or twice a week, soon moved to every weekday, and then every single day and now haven't missed a day in over eighteen months.
So my sincere thanks go out to everyone who's come by and stayed a moment or two to read the News of the Week, played around in the Friday Funhouse, or read one of the features or a Voices from the Past. Thank you for indulging me and my friends. Thank you for helping preserve fishing history. And thank you for just being you.
I hope to be here for another three decades or more, but for now I'll settle for being here tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.
-- Dr. Todd
