Although you are reading this in “blog” format, this is not at all how theMT began it’s life.
Way back in 1995, I graduated from dental school, packed up our Plymouth Grand Voyager and headed north for my first job as a real dentist. I spent one month working in a tribal dental clinic on a small indian reservation on the trinity river (the home of bigfoot…sasquatch…the yeti).
Instead of just dropping me off, I somehow convinced my wife to stay with me. So for one month we lived in a one bedroom Best Western motel room with our two sons (a two year old and a six month old). While I practiced dentistry and we explored the area, I began to send out a weekly email to a few family and friends that detailed our family activities. I called it “theMangoTimes” because I sent it from my first email account MangoAndy@aol.com (this was back in the days when AOL distributed their free software on floppy disks). It was an email-log of our experiences. So, not technically a weblog, but it had the heart of what I do here today…so I like to think of it as the original weblog.
Eventually, theMT was written monthly and finally I learned how to load it on the web. I discussed everything from bad candy to 1970′s cartoons to really bad parental myths (knuckle popping, etc…). But the inevitable finally happened…I got a life!
Actually, I just got really busy (started having kids by the bucket loads) and went through some trying times in the field of dentistry, which led to a dry spell on humor (who knows, I still may not be out of it yet!). It just took too much time to write, upload, and design. So now I am back, only with a new twist and in a new forum. No longer a slave to monthly writings and deadlines, I have joined the blog-evolution and can update or write as things pop across my “make-believe” editor’s desk.
I plan on republishing some past clippings from previous issues of theMT. I will continue to poke fun where I deem appropriate and I will offer comment on a few of my favorite topics including, but not limited to: my parents, my childhood, television, candy, old friends, neo-evangelicalism, ridiculous liberalism, government-based education, and others. I will tell you the funny stuff that the kids say and we’ll try to encourage you to read, watch a movie, or try something we liked. It goes without saying, but I also want to hear from you, so email or comment as you desire.
Quietly making noise,
Fletch
The 70s. How ’bout Alpha Beta? I loved that chain. I never realized as a kid just how big it really was until I saw an episode (the Pilot) of CHiPs and it opened up with a robbery at, yup, Alpha Beta. Even So Cal had that great store!
I have lots of memories from it, some good, some bad (involving Johnny Law.) I don’t want to get into them since this your mango, but I thought I’d share and maybe spike you into some memory of the Greek market place.
For those that don’t know Alpha Beta, you need to read this.
vi remember alpha beta, but for a local boy…it is really food villa i remember…my mom knew the butcher, the checkout lady, the baker, then in came safeway and the lot…
[...] one form or another, theMangoTimes has been around since 1995. Over the years it has been everything from a family notebook to a place where someone can read [...]
Hi again. Just checking out things on your blog. You look remarkably like an Amish in your photo in the upper right of the site.
Well, wrong hat and clothes, but the facial hair is right! anyway, doing social stuff online is somewhat new to me and I was drawn to the attractive visual layout of yours–very nice!
Deb…if only you knew me IRL…I don’t think the Amish are cool with baggie shorts, flipflops and frozen drinks…but I do like the movie Witness, does that count?