The Dirt on Blogs

Irony leaches from my freshly tilled yard.

It’s not often that I get to play golf course superintendent, but that’s what I did over the weekend. Last Friday I finally turned over my dead lawn – six months after having doused it with Roundup.

On Saturday, with my wife and 10-week-old boy watching from the front porch, I spent several monotonous hours pushing around all the uneven soil with what the Home Depot guys told me was a “lute rake.” I endured while pretending to be Marshall Bossard and the boys, going back and forth, from my driveway to neighbor’s driveway, for what seemed like a country mile combined. The rake did the job, although I would have preferred an ATV, some chain-link fence and a few boulders.

To my glee, the smoothed yard looked so good on Sunday that my wife suggested keeping it dirt. I celebrated by jogging 20 miles — in preparation of the May 21 Cleveland Marathon and more importantly, to even out the soreness between my upper and lower bodies.

With the dawn of a new work week, I was back to my full-time gig as a journalist, which is where the irony comes into play. This is my first blog posting in over 20 years as a journalist. And in the process of writing this, I find myself again going back and forth in a cloud of dust.

Blogs aren’t necessarily bad; I read them occasionally, especially if they’re specific to a particular interest of mine (Cleveland Indians, publishing, running, wine, etc.). Unfortunately, I have a hard time getting past the fact that bloggers are too often considered journalists, and anyone with a computer can blog these days. I’m guessing you’d feel the same way if you saw me walking toward one of your greens with a lute rake.

Of course, the staff of Golfdom promises only the best. The best of exactly what, then again, is anyone’s idea. As editor in chief Larry Aylward mentions below in the blog-christening item, some posts might enlighten, some might entertain, some might rant, and some might just shoot the breeze. If you’d like to reciprocate, more power to you. That’s the primary intent. And right about now, I could use some good advice on how to turn my beautiful plot of dirt into an even more picturesque lawn.

--Thomas Skernivitz, Managing Editor