April 26, 2005

Tagged Again!! Favorite Posts.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 10:34 pm

My buddy and traveling companion Eric of Straight White Guy dropped this meme in my lap today. He told me he had been twice meme-dinged this week, and he felt it appropriate that I should feel his pain. Eric is definitely a sharing kind of guy. In fact, in my mind, I could hear him laughing his sharing ass off all the way from Tennessee, not just because he laid a meme on me, but also because he laid one on me that is a real bitch.

The idea is that the tagee must select two of his or her favorite posts and link to them. Then, of course, the tagee gets to share the love with two additional bloggers.

The question, of course, is how does one select two “favorite posts”? I’ve read thousands of posts about all sorts of subjects in the almost two and a half years I’ve been at this. I’ve read scholarly discussions of complex issues, which inspired me to think hard about things. I’ve read posts that would rival the work of the finest comedy writers in the US. By contrast, I have read passionate entries that left me feeling emotionally drained. Because of the sheer volume of posts and variety of subject matter, I cannot possibly select two “favorite posts” in a systematic way.

Therefore, rather than trying to do the impossible task of skimming countless posts, I thought a bit about two posts that touched me in a way that they might not have touched others.

First up is my friend Sluggo’s post entitled, “Calling Max Bialystock,” (Max is the sleazy producer in the Broadway Show “The Producers”). Sluggo’s post describes his stint as an actor doing summer theater in Lennox, Massachusetts. This well-crafted post manages to tell what is ultimately a sad story in a most amusing way. However, having experienced the agony of “flop sweats” in my life, I suffered along with the characters in Sluggo’s post.

Next is a post by my Cousin Jack of Jack Bog’s Blog, entitled, “We Interrupt this Program,” in which Jack shares he remembrances of November 22, 1963 as a sixth grader in St. Aloysius School in the Ironbound Section of Newark (called “Down Neck” in Jersey). This beautifully written piece captures the sadness and confusion that reigned in this blue-collar Catholic grammar school when his class and his teacher learned that President Kennedy had been killed.

We prayed a lot at that school, but when Cronkite confirmed the worst, we did something we never did before or after: we all knelt down on that cold, hard tile floor, right next to our desks. We prayed like there was no tomorrow. We didn’t know what else to do. While we offered up Hail Mary after Hail Mary, Miss Matheson ran down to break the news to the principal. Soon the principal got on the intercom and told the whole school what the sixth grade already knew.

This post is special to me on two levels. First, when Jack wrote about the reaction of family members (“[T}he grownups were simply dumbfounded. Our moms and grandmas cried, and the men swore”), he was talking about our family. Second, it was this post that played a large part in my decision to jump into the blog pool. In “We Interrupt this Program,” Jack upheld our family’s tradition of being wonderful storytellers. And, when, shortly after writing the post, he suggested that I might be able to tell a couple decent stories as well, I headed over to Blogger.com and, well, you know the rest.

Now, I have the pleasure of handing this off to two other victims bloggers. I think my Montana friend Craig at mtpolitics and Mr. Helpful might want to kick my ass for this enjoy participating.

Have a swell time, gents.

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