Getting Acquainted

A semi-autobiographical introduction

Exposure - that’s what this medium allows and to expose oneself is to become vulnerable.

When I was young, my late father used to pay every summer for a membership at the Williamsburg Inn pool for our family. We’d go often, my sister and I, up until I joined the Colonial Williamsburg Fife and Drum Corps. Taking the plunge off of the diving board was a source of terror for me initially. Writing this initial entry is not much different.

Over the course of the past year, I’ve been gearing up for this. I established a Private Facebook group called “Friends of Hal Gill” - it felt like a weird thing to do. It may be. It’s so easy to appear narcissistic - or to even be narcissistic without realizing that one is. However, I believe it is an experiment in connection - of exposing myself - and in allowing others to be celebrated and known who might not know each other. I see myself as a hub on a non-hierarchical network - passing signals through the noise of cyberspace. So this is what we are doing here. If you are a reader of my post, Let me know who you are and why you were moved to read this. Or don’t….it’s a freedom to be anonymous too. I’ll wrap this first post up now and then see where it goes and how we do with this experiment.

To cap it off, here is a selfie snapped by a friend who I’d just met face to face on April 12, 2024 at The Black Cat here in DC. I’d delivered my father’s eulogy at his memorial service earlier that day at the Williamsburg United Methodist Church in Williamsburg, Virginia. The woman seated to my right asked, just after the picture was snapped, “Are you someone famous?” - I said “More like notorious.” :-)

Let’s see if this Substack doesn’t bear me out….