Hidden Agenda

My friend Joe in St. Louis has sometimes claimed that he enjoys my writing.

But can you believe a guy who not only is a government bureaucrat but also is a long-distance runner--not a racer, mind you, but just your average, ordinary, run-10-miles-a-day-for-the-fun-of-it sort of guy? I sometimes picture Joe pounding down some empty St. Louis street before dawn, cutting a slipstream of sweat through the swimmable Missouri humidity, sodden hair plastered sleek, banking into a turn, teeth exposed in a grin of delight and increased air flow, just having the best darn time that a government bureaucrat possibly can have--next to telling someone he regulates "No," that is.

Remember that old Disney animal short, the one with the river otters cavorting in utter purposeless joy in the snow to the background of Lizst's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2? That's what I'm reminded of. From now on, we'll just refer to Joe as The Otter.

And I know what The Otter likes in my writing: it's when I get on a rant about something or other and pour my guts out onto the page--where they lay exposed and steaming so that even the most novice soothsayer could read clearly and exactly who and what I am. The late sports writer "Red" Smith put it just slightly more poetically: "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."

Unfortunately for me, The Otter knows my weakness: it's that I think I'm smarter than other people. What a curse! The probability that it's shared with a majority of the human population does nothing to diminish the impact because I figure I'm smarter than they are, too!

Arrogance upon arrogance!

But I won't let a little thing like that stop me.

So while The Otter lured me into blogging by suggesting it would be interesting to read about my travels, I know what he really wants--blood!

And there are just a ton of things that tick me off. I'll call them "Sidebars."

Sorry about all the commas, Otter.