I must admit there is a little “Doogie Howser M.D.” vibe from doing this. I also get a sense of comfort in knowing that unless I tell my family and friends about the site the odds of them stumbling on to it are slim. I feel how my daughter sounded when we gave her a diary…as I sit here thinking of it I am not sure she knew what to do with it and I certainly didn’t offer up any advice. How would you explain the necessity of a diary to a child under age ten?…Honey, this is a book where you write your feelings and thoughts about the events of the day. We don’t want you bottling up your emotions so, if you don’t want to tell Mom or Dad put it all in this little book and everything will be okay. We certainly give smartphones negative reviews about their impact on family communication but, I now think the diary is the foundation of family communication breakdown. Anyway. A special friend of mine suggested that I write a book as if my life is so interesting. It’s not! I just want it to be so, I think “interesting” comes out in my mannerisms, words and expressions when I explain certain things. Well, I will decided to partially take the advice and start this blog site called “The Dirt Paved Road” and see where that takes me. The title has many meanings to me. I grew up on dirt roads and now everything around me is a concrete jungle. Life was rough, mostly my fault, throughout high school and college then suddenly things started falling into place. But, the main reason I chose this name is because of my father’s driveway. It is not miles long but requires a substantial amount of money to buy enough gravel to cover the entire thing. He is and always has been a thrifty individual so, he gets free loads of pavement milling when the highways are being repaired. The last time I was home I was able to help him with the project. The loads are a mix of broken up pavement and dirt…it will probably be as close as he ever gets to a paved driveway. As we spent the time together unloading he repeated said “this stuff works, after a little rain and running over it with the truck – it turns into a solid foundation” and all I could think of was…this is just like my life – a lot of work, storms and hard falls that eventually turned into a solid foundation…I am nothing more than a Dirt Paved Road.

– The Dirt Paved Road