My Italy e-mails -- back by popular demand

Barney Madsen recommended that I post on this blog all of the mass e-mails I sent from Italy during the 13-day trip I took there with my wife nearly three years ago (May 15-28, 2002). Accordingly, today I have spent nearly six hours posting them on the site and editing them -- a task which, as you will see, is still not complete, although all of the actual messages are here now. Most of you were among the original recipients of these messages, which I have kept during all this time in my Juno storage, partly because I still get occasional requests for them, and partly because, with the exception of a 5-page handwritten journal, they constitute my only written account of the trip. Now, with their publication on the blog, they are available on the Internet for one and all to see, and, I hope, enjoy.

I have taken the liberty to edit the e-mails, usually by making stylistic changes that occurred to me within hours or days after I sent the original messages. Most of these are minor in nature, and because editing is a luxury I have on the blog but did not have on Juno once I sent the e-mails to their original recipients, I may still make some minor changes to them in the future. The posts now include a few web links, which of course are highlighted. In some cases, I have inserted a comment in brackets, which corrects or amplifies something I included in the original message, but which was added long after the fact (more specifically, in the course of my labors today). On the heading of each post, I have included the date when the original e-mail was sent. They do not appear in chronological order, but at least for the time being, I leave it to you to sort them out chronologically. I am trying to figure out how to include all of them in one large "umbrella" post, but so far, I have been unable to do that. (Any suggestions, Barney?) So for the moment, you will have to pull up each entry individually.

You may feel free to share these with whomever you want, and as you have doubtless noticed, at the bottom of each post there is an e-mail icon for that purpose.

A few of these messages were actually sent after the trip, but were tied to it in such a way that I always include them whenever anyone asks me to send my Italy e-mails. It was a pleasure then, as it is now, to have been able to share this wonderful trip with some of the people who have been important to me in my life; and in my view, since I was not able to take you there with me, this was the next best thing. And so, ciao, e godete tutti!