The Beach!

Ah…the annual Thomas family beach trip!  This is year 17 or 18 in Holden Beach, NC most of them at the same house we are at this year – “Beach Nuts” – at 845 W. Ocean Blvd.  It’s wonderful, a single row of houses on a small island, the house is right on the beach and we can walk off the back deck right onto the beach!

Naps, card games, seafood and ocean waves.  Thanks to Grandma who pays for the house each year.  The house has 5 bedrooms so that it can comfortably accommodate us, Grandma and my sisters family.  When we first started coming here, Joy was probably one year old and my sister had a one year old and elementary school daughter.  Now, my sisters two daughters are married and one even has a two year old!  So the dynamics are a little different but I enjoy it thoroughly.

The only problem this year is we are missing Joy because she is off in Peru.  As all the kids get older, it gets tougher to get everyone together at one time.  One of my sister’s daughters was only able to spend the weekend here because her and her husband had to go back to work.

It’s a very therapeutic (sp?) week for me when I can do nothing and not feel guilty about it!  If I’m at home, there’s always something to do but here I can take long naps and read a lot!  Ah….the beach!

Popster

For some reason, I’ve had a lot of nicknames in my days but Popster is my favorite!  It was given to me by my oldest daughter, Joy.  I don’t remember exactly how it began but it does have a little more pizzaz than Dad.  Thus, the name of my weblog.  Unbelievably, popster was already in use so I had to add “old” to the title.  I realize that I am getting old – approaching the big 50! Although, in my mind nothing seems much different than the 20 somethings, my body reminds me each day that those days are far behind!  But back to popster – nothing defines my life more than the ladies you see in the header.  Even though I spend most of my waking hours at work, these ladies are my pride and Joy (Anna & Mallory, too!).  So being a popster is great, even an old popster!

Does anyone care? (or “The Beginning”)

Middle-age (well, late middle-age), white male blog – does anyone really care?  I noticed that wordpress alone has over 3 million bloggers!  Cyberspace is filled with billions of words, does anyone read them, does anyone care – Okay, you can already tell I’m a somewhat cynical, late-middle-age white male!  I have actually enjoyed reading blogs by my girls and my friends and thought – what the heck!  need to stay relevant, so must have a blog!  Okay, I’m really just bored!

The reason I’m really surprised that I’m doing this is that these random words are now locked in cyber space forever for anyone to happen upon.  Do I really want strangers or worse yet, my mother, my boss to read what I really think?  I am surprised at the level of openness on some of these blogs – but I guess its the way of the world these days – a world in which we will say anything on the web but don’t really know how to interact face-to-face.  Well, if nothing else, maybe it can cure my boredom, be an outlet for creative thought and a historical record of what a somewhat cynical, late-middle-age white male is thinking – its not all bad!