An August Personage

I liked to read books as a kid, but I didn't like school. I was dutiful, I studied, I did what I was supposed to do and got the grades. But I preferred horseback riding, building forts and wading barefoot in the river--things there wasn't time or weather for during the Illinois school year.

Even now, years out of school, for me, August signals the end of fun, the beginning of work.

This year August also signals the end of The Sky is Big in Pasadena. Ben Wideman began his blog in September of 2007 and "Can8ian Ben" has been chronicling Pasadena life ever since. He's a long distance cyclist, a lover of food, baseball and beer, a husband and father, a seminary student and soon-to-be-pastor, and that rare man who can hear all ideas with an open mind.

This month Ben says goodbye to his adopted home with daily tributes to Pasadena in the form of two lists: the things he'll miss (a long list) and the things he won't (shorter). The list of Pasadenans who will miss Ben is longer than a baseball field, longer than Ben can ride a bike in a whole day, longer than the distance between here and Harleysville, Pennsylvania--and I'm on it.