Thank You

As Bellis said, it was "like Christmas."

Thank you, Barbara Ellis (aka Bellis), Karin Bugge (aka Altadena Hiker) and Michael Coppess (aka East of Allen) for helping create a terrific groundswell yesterday, a blogging extravaganza to express our communal desire to keep soccer fields out of Hahamongna Watershed Park.

And thank you, Pasadena/Altadena blogging community, for teaming up to make a powerful statement.

When I spoke with Janette Williams of the Pasadena Star-News for her story about our efforts she asked me, in so many words, how one rallies a bunch of disparate bloggers in this world of online snark. I told her I've heard of snarky blogging but that's not my community. San Gabriel Valley Bloggers like each other. We tend not to go that route.

We bloggers don't always agree, we don't vote the same way, we don't care about the same stuff. But we're nice to each other.

Not everyone we invited to participate in yesterday's event responded to the call. Chances are those people want soccer fields at Hahamongna and it's their right to feel that way. But they didn't sabotage, send nasty messages or shout us down. (And blogs we didn't even think of added great posts to the mix.)

So thank you. We were heard on many levels. We made a statement about Hahamongna, and about community. People can work together. People can be nice to each other. At a time when hatespeak has become the vernacular of politics and TV news, I'm proud to say I hang with a crowd that doesn't speak that language.