A heavy heart (requiem for M.N.)

Through the grapevine I've found out one of the good guys in Maryland blogging passed away today.

While he blogged out of Anne Arundel County, I met Mike Netherland at the Tawes event in Crisfield two years ago, after I found out he was a fan of my site. In this we were a mutual admiration society; Mike wasn't the most prolific blogger at his own site but he was an outspoken commenter in other venues and in all respects was a great spokesman for the conservative cause.

Most times death is unexpected, and judging by his last post Mike was looking forward to a lot more blogging. It reminds us again that we need to approach life by living it - little did Mike know that his version of "middle age" was several years ago.

In the space Mike had for his "about me" profile, he wrote in part:

Approaching middle age with not-so-quiet desperation, I find solace in my writing. I love trying to get people to think for themselves, thus I have a small but hardy band of friends who seem to tolerate me.

Hopefully he's in a place where he can find out that he had more friends than he thought and we did a lot more than tolerate him. Perhaps he didn't have the most well-read site but he held his little corner of Maryland's blogosphere well and we're all poorer for his loss.

Rest in peace, Mike.