STICKY DOORKNOBS

How you can tell a Republican has recovered from surgery

   My dad is 85. We thought we might lose him this week. He faced surgery to remove a cancerous growth on his kidney. Miraculously and unexplainably (for skeptics and cynics), he not only made it through the surgery without any problems, but he seemed even to feel better afterward than he had before. He was under the knife for about three hours as doctors in the suburban Dallas hospital performed a laproscopy meticulously and professionally.
   In post-op, my brother, sister and I stood around him as the nurse asked him a series of questions to determine his lucidity and how quickly or not he was emerging from the anesthesia.
   "Do you know what day it is?"
   "Wednesday," Dad said correctly.
   "And what year is this?"
   "2009."
   "And who is our president?" she asked.
   "Don't get me started," he said.

   That was right about the time I knew everything was going to be OK and it would be safe to make the drive back home.

  

Former Midland sports writer Joe Wyatt again recognized for his truly hideous writing efforts

In keeping with a tradition established by the Texas Rangers Baseball Club, wherein all former Rangers enhance their careers upon their departure from Arlington, I present for you another case study much in the same vein: Former Midland Reporter-Telegram employees frequently go on to bigger and better things. The examples are too numerous to mention, so I only point to one today: Joe Wyatt, former sportswriter/poet extraordinaire who loves all things Pittsburgh, even and maybe especially the Pirates, and is the only person I ever met who prefers his cerveza room temperature. If the room is un-air conditioned in the middle of August.

Joe moved from Midland to the colder pastures of Amarillo in 1993 where he was a feature writer for the Globe News for five years. He followed that up with 10 years in Canyon in the WTAMU Public Relations department and presently, he occupies the same type communications coordinator position at Amarillo College. Joe was one of the finest gentlemen and most creative writers to ever come through the MRT despite what you are about to read.

In my email box this morning was a news flash from Joe himself who wrote to tell me he was named a finalist in this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Writing contest. Got his name in a couple of papers and everything. In the link above you can read his winning entry.

If you're unfamiliar with Bulwer-Lytton, it is a contest that celebrates the worst of writing. A person must have a deep understanding of what good writing is before they can have a chance to win a bad writing contest. Joe is that way. It's safe to say he had one of the most unique styles of sports writing we've seen here in Midland and we were fortunate to have him if only for a short time.

Contestants in the annual B-L contest send in their nominations for the worst first paragraphs; there are additional subcategories, including most vile pun, which Joe also received dishonorable mention for in 2007. It is a truly hideous entry:

A rather youthful Billy Joel was fascinated when he entered the Green Room at the Tonight Show and saw a group of matronly nuns hastily applying hair color to the noggin of the show's next guest, Neil Young, whose agent offered an explanation from the corner of the room: "Only the good dye Young."

I asked Joe what sort of prize he would receive for his efforts at being a finalist this year.

"Only the grand prize winner receives an actual prize of $250," he said. "The rest of us must live off the glory, which is only slightly better than toiling in obscurity."

Congratulations, Joe, for your truly horrible efforts. Applauded are you to be.

Beauty at a gallop

Sometimes, you catch an image that takes your breath ... I'm not a huge horse fan, but I do like them a lot and think they're beautiful, highly intelligent creatures, as evidenced by these photos of running horses in Sixteen Springs Canyon, NM.