These days I am starting to get a few subscribers to this blog that don’t come from my inner circle of oft-exhorted loved ones. Thank you, new friends! I am eternally grateful to my sisters Mary and Laura, though, because for quite a while it seemed like they comprised my entire audience, and they have always been supportive as well as serving as a great resource for filling in the details of our childhood adventures. One question remains unanswered as yet, though: who put the wind-up Jumping Corn toy in Mary’s hair? Laura or Evelyn? Who? History is silent, but Laura and I are both willing to take the rap, if only because either one of us would have done it had we found means and opportunity. Mary’s hair was epic, and we were always wondering what it would do next.

But even while Mary and Laura were my only human visitors, I became dimly aware of another presence. Sometimes I would see a weird-looking web address listed in my stats as a referral source. These always came with an opportunity to mark them as spam, and being fearful of the unknown, for a while I did this every time I saw one. Stranger danger! However, since knowledge is power, I set about reading to learn more about this phenomenon. Here’s what I learned: These web addresses are the source of web-crawling spider-bots, which are harmless. My son says they are deployed for the purpose of scouting information that will further augment various internet algorithms. They visit, but they leave only a footprint. Also, even if I mark the address as spam, these visits will still count in my daily stats, so now I leave them alone.

I figure my best bet is to try to keep a handle on my imagination, and not think too hard about virtual spiders rummaging around, mechanical legs clicking, mandibles testing the cyber air. . .ok, for my new mental image, I replace the hairy, glowing-eyed, venom-dripping arachnid with a gently bumbling Daddy Long-Legs.