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Monday, August 25, 2008
(PlanetBears members - click here): I still have fond memories of my very 1st days of logging on to the internet, with my 14.4k, my 3.5 Windows, browsing the WWW with my Netscape. This was '95, and at the time, Bear sites were very scarce, but with determination, I searched and sought out until the wee hours of the night every night until I found what I wanted.

One of the very first sites I remember coming across that had a lasting impression on me was an AOL homepage maintained by John, aka Blithwulf (photo - profile). Here was this oso cute redheaded young Bear, 6'2'', bearded with glasses (I've always had a thing for Bears with glasses) with a page on the net, yet what made Blithwulf's different was: 1) he updated it (which was very rare for Bear homepages ~ most guys made then left them static), and he content I never saw on any other sites ~ specifically Bear foot material. Also, his pics were a whopping 640x480, not just glorified thumbnails.

Blithwulf then went one step further: he moved away from the AOL homepage and started working on an actual 'Bear Foot' site. There was a forum which was quite active, and Blithwulf's idea was to have an e-zine with more content, more photos, more Bear goodness. Well the forum kept going for awhile but at some point Blithwulf dropped the project, and both his AOL site and forum were dropped.

All that that remains of Blithwulf's projects are my fond memories of realizing that the internet is going to be the place where I was finally going to be able to express myself, and that I was going to meet up with good looking men who are turned on by the same things as me. In other words, it was sites like Blithwulf that help normalize my world

Did I say the only thing that remains from his AOL site is my memories? My bad - check out this great set of photos. I chatted with Blithwulf the other day, asking him if he had anything left from his homepage, and he sent me these 16 classic photos... and it was stuff like this that had made me going back to Blithwulf's page every day for more.

PlanetBears' Update: here are over 150 photos Blithwulf sent me back when I used to run bear-pics ('00 ~ '06). Only thing is that they are 640x480, but they are still a ton fun to see, and Blithwulf said he and his boyfriend are working on new photos which he'll be sending as well.