I read (and write) warnings about the need to protect future job prospects and professional relationships by being careful about what we write in blogs. Someone interested in hiring me someday will learn a lot about me from the many posts I’ve written over the years.

But today I got a wonderful reminder about another side of blogging. It helps reconnect people separated by time and distance.

I received an email at work that contained the following exchanges:

Former college friend:

janey lou passed this along… keefe has a blog! and gray hair! and he’s suddenly morphed from a hip college dude into a suburban dad interested in family fun and spirituality. who knew?

Former college Journalism advisor:

YIKES!! Live in the present? And here I thought Keefe lived in the FAR OUT!

My reply to both:

Okay, the gray hair is true (better than NO hair), but the “suburban dad interested in family fun and spirituality” is only part of the puzzle. I still keep an eye on the dark side! [I threw in a link to the Big Dominatrix post from yesterday, just to show them how edgy I am these days.] I am thrilled to hear from you both! Please write back or call my cell so that we can catch up. I’m starting to crank up my podcasting as well as blogging, and maybe we can think of something to record together.

I would really enjoy reconnecting with the many great people I met at Eastern Illinois University, especially the daily student newspaper where we learned a lot about communications and life—both good and bad. Thanks to my blog, it looks like that will happen very easily!

eiu journalism blog