I did not realize that it had been so long since I had blogged. Well, the reasons had been the usual ones -- working on my writing, going on a much-needed vacation with Husband and Son, and coming back to more work.

I was raised in a small but historically important town in Pennsylvania, and that it where we usually go on vacation. Usually? Always. It is where oil was first reached by drilling a well, back in 1859. I graduated from high school there in 1958, and worked on both the Centennial edition of the Titusville Herald and the First Day of Issue Petroleum Commemorative Postage Stamp. It was a 4-cent stamp -- what a concept.

Anyway, it was great to see that the 150th anniversary of Drake Well was having a lasting effect, even after the parade was long gone. Titusville has a marvelous architectural heritage of commercial and residential buildings, and they were feverishly being refurbished while we were there. Along Main Street, which is ironically not a commercial thoroughfare but lined with mansions and large houses from end to end, I felt a real connection. I walked that route to school in fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth grades. In rain, sunshine and snow. . .

What I came away with this trip is that the house that muck-raking journalist Ida Tarbell had been raised in was being given restorative attention. There is a plaque marking the house and when I walked alone past her house, I sometimes stopped and read the plaque. I thought to myself that if someone from such a small town could become an important writer, I could be a writer too. I don't look at myself as being important so far as depth of thought goes, but I am a pioneer in electronic publishing.

Now, I don't particularly want a plaque erected by my old home. People would have to make a real effort to find it. I'm just proud to have achieved what I started out to do, back in fifth grade.