Encouragement and a year-end report

It’s time for a year-end report, and then a holiday break.

According to the various devices that monitor activity on The Red Electric, this post is number 540 since I began writing regularly in September 2006. In that time I have had 13,614 visits. Recently the site has averaged 45 visitors a day.

Those are the numbers. Occasionally I learn how readers are affected by what I post here.

Yesterday, I received a Christmas greeting in the mail from Robert McGowin, a fellow typewriter collector. Robert is a teacher who lives in Montgomery, Alabama. I’ve never met him in person, but we have exchanged correspondence and, as you will see, he follows the meanderings of The Red Electric.

The cover of his card was a photo he had taken of a 1930s Underwood Universal portable typewriter (Jack Kerouac used this model). A desk lamp bathes the old typewriter in amber light. I’ve shown the card here, displayed on a similar machine from my own collection.

Robert typed his message to me — flawlessly, as usual.

“I’ve been keeping up with you through your various blogs online. I especially enjoyed your entry containing the Alan Watts quote (“We have run into a cultural situation…”) regarding the dangers of mass mediation.

“I liked that sentiment so much that I put it on my blackboard, letting it remain there for several weeks. Students asked what it meant, and some even copied it on the outside of their notebooks — the ultimate tribute.”

Robert’s thoughtful note, other encouraging responses and my own irrepressible muse will motivate me in the new year.

I’ll resume January 5.