A year ago today, I took up personal publishing on the Web. I had bought a scanner to preserve old family photographs that had been mouldering in boxes and envelopes for decades. When I took several to work to consult with some of our brilliant and talented graphic artists on how best to improve or restore the photos electronically, my young friend, Aaron Wertheim, insisted I start a fotolog as some of our colleagues had done.

And he kept insisting for several weeks, saying that the photos are history. Aaron particularly liked this one of my great Aunt Edith and this one of my Dad and this one of me when I produced radio shows.

And so on this date a year ago, I began my fotolog timeline with this photo and mini-story.

Because fotolog.net is a Website meant for sharing images – a photolog, not a Weblog – I set rules for myself about the captions:

• They could be no longer than six lines.
• They must be more interesting that just names, date and location.
• They must tell a story with a beginning, middle and an end.
• They should say something that is of interest to people who are not family.

There may have been a couple of other rules, but these are close enough to the original list and for the most part, I met those requirements. The response from people who viewed my fotolog was gratifying and encouraging. Several people flattered me by creating similar timelines of their own.

Without the fotolog, I am unlikely to have finished scanning and restoring the photos and I certainly would never have gathered the stories together.

When the fotolog caught up with the present, I was at a loss as to how to continue. I am not a natural photographer. I don’t take the camera with me often; I even forget at parties and on vacations. And I have little talent for it. Words are my medium.

I have continued at fotolog with tours of my neighborhood (there are links on the right rail if you are interested), but more important to me is that it led directly to launching this Weblog where I can use the words I am far more comfortable with to lobby for the equality of older people in a culture that does everything possible to hide and demean us.

But I will leave my rants for another time. Today, I want to mark the first anniversary of my leap into personal cyberspace.