I’m staring into the abyss, and my old friend stares right back at me.
That Coupeville Sports — a free-to-read blog hyper-focused on small-town athletics (and a few other things) going down on a prairie in the middle of a chunk of rock way up in the Pacific Northwest hinterlands — is still alive, is nothing short of a miracle.
Or so I tell myself as I pound out stories at 2 AM on a computer fueled by a very-tired hamster on a wheel.
Somehow, we’re creeping up on 14 years, with the blog having debuted back in August 2012, and this is article #12,762.
We’ve survived a pandemic, me couch-surfing in West Virginia for three months, and a weaselly South Whidbey School Board member trying to get my advertisers to drop me in 2024 — while not realizing those ads were a one-time payment, with most of them having signed up eons ago.
But now, less than four weeks away from the first high school practice for a CHS sports team — football hits the field August 19 — I’m back to playing my old game.
Can I survive long enough to get to the fall, when donations typically rise and I’ll have the chance to seek financial aid from the booster club?
Or being unable to pay rent when August arrives, in a matter of a few days, will I finally achieve my destiny of living in a van down by the river? Just without the van.
I currently have three monthly bills — $600 for rent, $50 for internet (necessary for writing an internet blog), and $35 for phone service — with WordPress expecting $300 in mid-September to keep Coupeville Sports functioning for another year.
Since returning to Whidbey, I haven’t owned a vehicle, using Island Transit, dodging the high price of gas in America, and staring down oncoming traffic while navigating the side of the highway between bus stops.
Some of you are remarkably careful drivers, while a few of you need to focus on staying on your side of the white line a little better. Just sayin’.
I came back from my sisters in West Virginia because I hurt my foot clearing land, got an infection, and needed access to my Washington state health care. My recovery has prevented me from doing the kind of side work which has helped keep me afloat in previous years.
This is a tough time financially for almost all of us, except for maybe the billionaires out there, and I realize people’s generosity can only go so far.
I’m not asking for a handout.
I offer a unique service. No one else is doing what I’m doing, at least in this region.
If wall-to-wall coverage of Cow Town is something which matters to you, if having access to 900+ articles a year, is something you want to keep going, I need a little help.
The foot is almost healed, which would allow me to pick up outdoors work again, and there’s always a .0000001 chance Sports Illustrated or some Canadian media empire will suddenly decide to fully fund my writing.
Sweet pipe dreams are made of this…
If you can help, I greatly appreciate it.
There are a lot of stories yet to tell, if I can hold off the abyss a little longer.
PayPal:
https://paypal.me/DavidSvien?locale.x=en_US&country.x=US
Venmo:
David-Svien
Snail Mail:
1722 Whales Run Pl.
Coupeville, WA 98239
Coupeville Sports 