Veteran Bloggers
By
Eric Shackle
New Page 1
Will you still be blogging
when you're 94?
|
|
Sweden's Allan Lööf (94)
displaces Canada's
Donald Crowdis (92)
as the world's oldest blogger
By ERIC SHACKLE,
in Sydney, Australia
|
  Ninety-four-year-old Allan Lööf, (left) of
Norrköping, Sweden, is the world's oldest blogger. Most
of the media reported
last month that 92-year-old Donald Crowdis, (right) of Toronto,
Canada, was the world's
oldest blogger. But they were wrong. They'd never heard
of Allan Lööf.
On Dec. 2, Allan's local
daily, Norrköpings
Tidningar proudly displayed his photo and a story
about him by
author/photographer Hakan Pettersson on its front
page.
"If I'm half as
productive at 74 as Allan
is at 94, I'd be happy," Swedish media practitioner
Hans Kullin commented
in his media and PR blog Media Culpa.
"Two weeks ago,
BoingBoing wrote
about 92-year-old Donald Crowdis, and asked if he might
be the world's oldest
blogger. But we who follow the Swedish blogosphere know
that Allan Lööf is Mr
Crowdis' senior by two years.
"Allan Lööf, 94,
has been blogging for a
year and has had his own site for a couple of years. On
his blog he writes that
no-one has yet found an older blogger than him: 'Any
blogger who is older
than me hasn't made contact yet. In a comment it has
been said that there might
be a 92 year old Japanese who is currently blogging. Who
knows?'"
Allan Lööf's website
says he's "a
senior", raised in Finspång, where he now lives. He
became interested in
music early on, taking violin lessons and getting
involved in other kinds of
musical activities as a child. It adds:
During the decades to follow Allan is frequently
letting his voice be heard
in different choirs.
In 1951 Allan and Lennart Johansson, another
Finspång musician, founded a
vocal group called Dur och Moll (Major and
Minor) also featuring five
singing ladies. This vocal group performed very
frequently in different shows
and cabarets, as well as in entertainment programs. In
1956 they were
broadcasted in the legendary Frukostklubben
(The Breakfast Club) with
the famous Swedish actor Sigge Fürst as compère.
Allan started to write lyrics earlier, but the
first melody (Aurora)
was created in 1950. Allan tells that he in the
beginning was "humming
forth" his tunes, thus "hum music" as
his publishing name. It
wasn't until he got himself a wire recorder
(magenefon) he was able to
record and save his ideas for future editing and
revisions.
When Allan moves from Finspång in 1957 the Dur och
Moll septet becomes
more difficult to keep together, and we could say that
the first musical
period in Allan's life ends in 1958. Almost 40 years
later Allan learns that
one of his old tunes have been performed live in
Norrköping.
He then decides to see if he can't make some more
melodies again. It worked
and the three recording we see presented on these
pages are composed recently.
Indeed a very strong comeback!!
Allan is very careful to mention about the
background and the reason why he
wanted to compose these new melodies: "There was
a lot written in the
newspapers about how miserable the situation was for
the old people living in
the homes for the aged and similar institutions.
"Since I have had the privilege of being
healthy, I want to spread
some joy among those older being less privileged. The
melodies tells much
about romantic experiences we have had during life,
and remembering these
beautiful memories can give us some strength during
our older days."
Who said bloggers are always young? Perhaps blogging
keeps us young in heart.
Long live Allan Lööf - and a happy birthday to Donald
Crowdis of Toronto,
almost certainly the world's second-oldest blogger, who
will be 93 on Christmas
Eve.
"I've been swept away
by Don's blog"
Donald Crowdis has many fans who admire him
for his blog and his
wisdom. Here's a fine tribute written by Nils
Geylen (aka Napfisk), of
Antwerp, Belgium, who has kindly agreed to let
us copy it from his
blog, NDNL
It’s not everyday
that you make a truly
wonderful discovery among the millions of
today’s blogs. Yet,
yesterday I did.
I’d never heard of
Donald Crowdis, I’ve
never seen his CBC show The Nature of
Things, and I sure
never visited the Nova Scotia Museum – of
which he was curator
from 1940 to 1965.
1940? That’s right,
Don was born in 1913
and he’s blogging at Don to Earth, making
him one of the world’s
oldest bloggers.
And he’s terrific
at that.
I’ve already been
swept away by Don’s
blog, his humor, wisdom and occasional
Grumpy Old Man irony. But
don’t be fooled by his blogging byline; he
ponders more than just Life,
the Universe, and Aging. With great wit
and erudition he tackles
such subjects as packaged dinners, getting
rich and the palolo worms
of the South Pacific.
I’m really taken in
with Don as he is
quite the character – somewhat of a lovely
mix between Kurt
Vonnegut and Yoda.
He’s a survivor of
the Halifax explosion
(my apologies for that by the way, as I know
Belgians were partly
responsible for it), his paternal
grandfather was knifed in the back
as he was throwing a drunk out of a bar in
Colorado during the gold
rush (!) and he underwent an erroneous, and
entirely superfluous,
instance of lung surgery (because the
doctors thought it was cancer,
whereas it was in fact healed tuberculosis
tissue).
Like I said, he’s
funny, but also offers
food for thought, not in the least for the
younger bloggers who
might not be able to imagine still getting
it done at the age of
ninety-two.
On Age and
responsibility he writes:
Our
responsibility, then, is to be as
little a burden as we can manage, and to
pass on the records and
lessons we have accumulated and
learned.
I have at least one
thing in common with
this man who wants to be there and be part
of it all, all the time.
He writes:
I do not know who
said it – it might
have been myself – but I hate to die; I
want to see how it all
turns out!
Oh, boy, Don, do I
know what you mean!
|
"Allan Lööf is not only the
world's oldest blogger; he
must also be the world's only blogger with four dots
in a row over his
name," says US Wordsmith Anu Garg.
|
