Good-Bye.

This will be the last post to Red Stick Rant. The address will remain open, as I have some 6 years of posts and comments here - some of which I refer back to occasionally. But this is it.

20 years ago this very day my wife and I left Boston, with our new baby in hand, to return to our native Louisiana. We returned to Louisiana because is where our families are. To raise our own family without them was just not an option for us. But looking back on that move, it hasn't been the always blessing we had hoped for. The grass is not always greener.

In 2011 (when I put this blog on hiatus for a year), my former business partner, behind my back, seized my share of our 10-year old design practice (as my wife and I were leaving on a two-week vacation, no less), leaving us with nothing but a guarantee on the firm's debt (which he later defaulted on, wrecking my credit). This put huge strains on our family in the last few years, as my wife and I struggled to re-establish our professional names and professional practices under a mountain of debt, judgements and legal bills.

Yesterday, those strains burst.

The what and the how, are not for public airing. But the hopes and the optimism we had as we got into my friend Hugh's VW bus to head to the airport on 1 January 1994, are gone. Healing my family, and getting those hopes and optimism back, are now my first priority - and my sole New Year's Resolution. Blogging, Facebooking, Twitter, or all of the other distractions in my life are now very low on the list.

To everyone who has stopped by to read Red Stick Rant over the years, and maybe leave a comment... Thank you, and may God Bless. Good Bye.

.....CLIFFORD