Beyond the South End

Butchie sleeping in the sun on his pole.

Sonny’s Sunshine Corner

Now that the stomach flu I had is over with and Georgia is finally coming out of the ice storm we had this week, maybe we can get on with this year in the right way instead of with all these recent worries. I say, let’s start this year over again and see if we can get it right this time.

One thing my loyal readers got right was giving me inspiration for new blogs. A few months ago I was running out of idea and you all came to my rescue. Ellen Linn, in commenting on an old story from 2011, inspired me to take another look at Bremen, Maine, resulting in a new blog story. Ellen is a musical director for a church in Worchester, Massachusetts and so was interested in my story that included information about the Bremen Union Church.  Her folks lived in Bremen for a time. Thanks, Ellen.

I also edited and wrote a blog inspired by Austin Nagel, whose family includes the Pillsbury sea captains, one of whom lived in the South End. Austin was also commenting on another story I wrote and he included material for this new blog. I gave him a guest blog spot and added my own research to his material. I think it ended up quite well.

On top of that, my friend Ruth Wade, commenting on Austin’s blog inspired yet another blog which you’ll see this month about the Snows of Snow Shipyard in the South End.

All of these new blogs have been a boom to the blog space as readership reached the 40,000 plus mark in the middle of January.

This month you will find the usual blogs as well as any more stories you, my readers, may inspire. I invite you to email me with any and all comments you may have about any of the stories you see on the blog. Simply email me at southendstories@aol.com.

I also urge you to continue to hit the ads on the right side of the blog. I’ve seen some interesting ones lately.

It’s been very cold in Georgia in the past week. We had a temperature of 12 degrees while in Owls Head it was 17. Go figure. Butchie can’t understand why that if the sun is shining on his porch that it isn’t warm when he sticks his head out. Sun means heat, right? We love our Butchie, but he’s not all that smart unfortunately.

Till next time, keep warm wherever you are.