Blogging granny a hit with surfers

SANXENXO, Pontevedra (Reuters) - "Today it's my birthday and my grandson, who is very stingy, gave me a blog."

So reads the first entry by one of the world's oldest Webloggers, Maria Amelia Lopez, who, at the age of 95, has surprised herself by a sudden conversion from Web-illiterate to cybercelebrity.

"When I saw my grandson using the Internet, it caught my attention. I said to myself 'What's this? You can find out about anything. I want an Internet!'"

With 60,000 regular readers so far, Lopez's homely mix of memory and chat, available at http://amis95.blogspot.com/, attracts regular readers from around the world and has put her back in touch with the younger generation in a way she had never imagined.

CIVIL WAR MEMORIES

Due partly to cataracts which mean she can't see screens well, Lopez is assisted in her blogging by her grandson, Daniel, who takes her dictation.

Many of her stories deal with a long life, which started happily and then had to steer through Spain's vicious Civil War and the long years of dictatorship by General Francisco Franco which followed.

"I had a very happy youth," she wrote, describing expeditions to bullfights and fun times with her cousins.

"Young men were different back then. They brought us flowers, gardenias, violets, chocolates. Not like the foul-mouthed bunch today."

Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has written to congratulate Lopez on her blog and she recommends other seniors to take up blogging. But it's not all easy.

"I'm going to die before I get broadband," read one recent, sad entry.

Maria Amelia Lopez



NOTE: I just registered www.SeniorCitizenBlogging.com I would love to post stories from Senior Citizens to keep alive the good memories and history that doesn't make the history books.