Happy Sixth Birthday, Sheepshead Bites!

Six years ago on this date, May 12, I registered the domain name SheepsheadBites.com. Within two hours, I customized a blog template and published the first post to ever appear on this website.

Man, what a ride it has been.

Back then, it was intended to simply be a creative outlet while I worked a soulless gig at a trade publication. I never expected the outpouring of support from neighbors who, somehow, found their way here within the first few days of launch. Southern Brooklyn, it seemed, was desperate for some love, digital-style.

I certainly never expected that I’d leave my job and come to pilot this ship full-time, into the turbulent, uncharted seas of digital community news during the most challenging, empowering, stressful, inspiring, maddening and unquestionably rewarding journey of my entire life. Or that, six years on, we’d be sailing onwards evermore, lord willing.

I could sit here and recount Sheepshead Bites’ victories, our trying moments, or the subjects I’ve worked on over the years that filled me with so much damn feeling – pride, shame, empathy and exaltation – that my heart verged on exploding. Or I could harp on the support we’ve received from our business partners, testimony not only to Sheepshead Bites’ broad and growing audience, but also to the recognition of our local, loyal and independent message, which is at the core of Sheepshead Bites’ mission.

I could but I won’t. Because you’re here and you already know it, and I’ve never been one to preach to choirs.

So instead, I say something I don’t get to say often enough: Thank you. Each and every one of you. It continues to be such a privilege, and I look forward to continuing this uncertain but exciting voyage with you by my side.