Fun Monday-Blogging

Our Fun Monday host this week is Bee Dancing As Fast As I Can. Love that name, by the way. Here is the assignment she gave to us.

I'd really like to know WHY you blog. Tell me how you got started or why you got started and why you keep it up. Plus there's a photo requirement: Post a picture of the one person/place/thing that most symbolizes the town or area where you live.

I stumbled into the blogging world a couple of years ago by readings the blogs of friends like janjanmom. It didn't take long for me to get the bug to be really involved in this unique community. I started for two reasons. First of all, my job is in marketing, and I thought it was important for me to understand what this forum is all about and how it works in order to use it if necessary in my work for promotional and informational purposes. It's a medium whose power I believe, cannot and should not be ignored.

Secondly, I have always enjoyed writing and needed an outlet for my writing. Like 50% of the bloggers out there, I have dreams of writing a book one day. I've been taking notes and filing away ideas for a couple of years but needed to develop the habit of writing every day and eeking out time for my writing. I felt like blogging would be a good way to do that, and it has.

Now for the pictorial part of this assignment. I had a hard time sticking to one photo because my town is a bit of a contradiction. It's a river town of about 30,000 people, kind of a big small town. And there is no denying that the river has built and supported this city since its inception. This kind of traffic can be found here every day.

Our community has survived civil war trials and the great flood of 1937. In fact, this picture was taken on the river side of the flood wall built by the Army Corps of Engineers after that devastation. A lot of our community concerts and festival activities take place right here on these riverbanks. I would be remiss if I didn't show you the other side of this flood wall. In fact, my friend M. at the tourism center would whack me up the side of the head if I didn't show you this:

A few years ago, the city commissioned a New Orleans artist to paint scenes from the city's history onto our flood wall. These are a few of the panels. Each scene is from an actual photo or is the artist's interpretation of actual events in the city's history. You must believe me when I tell you this photo doesn't do them justice. They are absolutely beautiful in person.

So, we have a lot of river jobs, some manufacturing jobs and a whole lot of farming around here. There's a definite country feel to this region though. This kind of scene is everywhere you turn, and that's part of why I like it here so much.In fact, if I had to pick just ONE picture that sums up this region, this would be it. This kind of view is available outside just about everyone's back door around here. However, in the midst of all the country flavor we have these unique bright spots of diversity and big city ideas. We have a state of the art performing arts center that brings Broadway shows to our town. We have a symphony, and the historic homes that used to be falling apart have been remodeled into fabulous buildings that are used as homes and art galleries by artists who have moved here from all over the country in the past few years. Who knew they would pick this little rural part of the country to set up shop and bring us such cool businesses and people. This really is a special place to live, cornfields on one side of the road and painters on the other. Now toddle on over to Bee's place to see everybody else's Fun Monday contributions.