A Sappy Happy New Year's Post

In 2007 I learned what Charles Dickens meant by the opening line of Tale of Two Cities "It was the the best of times. It was the worst of times"

Much of the year was absolutely LOUSY, for America, for Israel and most important for my family. But I end the year with a sense of optimism, a belief that if we have faith and try to fix things, the "Big Guy" upstairs will show us the way. As Moonface Martin (public enemy #13) said in the play Anything Goes "it is always darkest just before someone turns on the lights"

As lousy as 2007 was, I have so much to be thankful for. Many of you know that from October 2006 through today I have had at least one close family member in the hospital every week. Yes and my little dog too. I am very thankful that everyone is still with us.

I am thankful for my many friends, who when things got me down in the middle of the summer, threw me a surprise birthday party just to show that I have friends. I am thankful that my friends and family were all healthy enough to go to my son's bar mitzvah in November.

In a few weeks this blog will celebrate its two year anniversary 1/23/06..but in actuality I didn't start blogging for real until 13 months ago when my friend Chaim (Freedom's Cost) said that If I wanted to be taken seriously I needed to start posting every day. So I threw myself into it. The past year saw almost 1,600 posts, one hundred thousand visitors, plus 15o daily subscribers via email, two awards, Four HH Carnivals and One Self-hating Jew awards.

Through the ups and downs of this whacko year, my passion has been to get that one piece of information--that one different perspective, that will help fight the battle against the mainstream media which makes it up as they go along. It is my 4-5 time dialog with you guys, my readers, that has sharpened my pen and my resolve..I thank you for letting me take up your bandwith.

I need to thank some other people before I end this sappy post (thanks for indulging me this once). A year ago I was a Newbie..and for all intents and purposes I still am. In the past year I have developed so many friendships and there have been so many people who took me under their wing. These are just some of the people who inspire me every day. They are all on my blogroll if you want to visit them,,and you should. People like Chaim my friend and teacher, Aaron my Bagel Blogging friend (move in to your new home soon so you can rejoin the blogisphere) Pamela my "Blogmother" who give me so much encouragement, Yael my Good Morning pick me up from the Rocky Mountains, Ted who gives sage advice, Deb whose truth is always right, Spree who's writing wakes me up, Yaakov who didn't know me from Adam but let me use his Dry Bones, Dave who knows much more about blogging than coaching, Fred who showed me that the biggest thing about Texas are the bright minds within it and Daniel Pipes who despite being an internationally known foreign policy expert, adviser to presidents and presidential wannabes finds the time to answer email and give advice and encouragement to columnist wannabes like me.

I would also like to thank my friends at Big Tobacco Wal-Mart. You guys ROCK. We debate, we fight, we make each other laugh, but most of all we make each other THINK. I do not know how there can be so many talented people in one group.

Most importantly I want to thank my wife, Lois. When you need me to do something in the morning you sometimes ask me why I can't skip minyan and go on an errand. The reason is that I still remember how you looked when you were in the ICU unit and had all of those tubes sticking out of you. If I go to minyan 10 times a day, seven days a week, I couldn't thank God enough for the fact that you are still alive and with us. I LOVE YOU.

OK thats the sappy post. Its almost Shabbos and I got to run. If I left you out please forgive me. And to my wonderful readers, don't worry one hour after sundown tomorrow its back to Crazy Sammy Fighting the Good fight.

To all my Friends, both electronic or in the flesh, and my family I wish you all a happy and HEALTHY New Year.

God Bless America
Am Yisroal Chai, L'dor v'Dor

Sam