What a special day here at HHW. Congratulations to Bruce and Guy Haines for starting this here site, and making it the wonderful place it is today. It really is amazing to think about all those days of continuous notes from bk. Really chronicling life, it's ups and downs, the big things and the small things.
It's fascinating to read those very first notes and see how the site started. I remember back when all this was going on - although I hadn't met Bruce yet at that time. My only contact with him had been ordering a few CDs from the site that shall not be named. I remember I was terribly disappointed at the time to hear that Bruce was leaving, because I really liked and appreciated the nameless site. There aren't many places that lovers of musical theater and the American Songbook could depend on to turn out CDs of this music, so every one of them was and is precious, and I knew that Bruce's departure meant we would be losing a good one.
I had heard the nasty rumors, but was a member of the ATC board at the time, so I knew Bruce's side of things, and always believed he got the raw deal. It was, after all, his company. How do you throw someone out of their own company? None of it made sense, and I realized there were certainly lots of goings on and motivations that none of us on the outside knew anything about. But what was apparent was how hurt Bruce seemed to be, what a bizarre shake up it seemed to be, and what a loss to the rest of us it seemed to be.
But - time marches on, and a good thing that is, because thanks to Bruce, we now have this wonderful site that many people think of as home, and Bruce has the wonderful Kritzerland, which is becoming a major source of important music releases, to the benefit of all of us.
So special congratulations to BK today, and a happy HHW celebration to all of you on this lovelier than lovely anniversary.
