And the Runner-Up is….

        Tommy Bibey!

        Hey, I’ve been a brides-maid so long it don’t bother me.  But I’ll have to say you guys have taken me up the blog ladder beyond my wildest dreams.  The English Professor did some research and found out my blog had crossed into the top 300,000 on the Net.  My agent checked it out, and sure enough I was 271,202 in the world to be exact.  I wasn’t sure how that happened, but it has to do with y’all visiting and commenting and linking and all this business I’d never heard of a year ago.  Shoot, last year I didn’t know a blogroll from an egg-roll. 

        Well, like I’ve said if you play the mandolin in the forest and no one is there to listen there ain’t no music, and as far as I’m concerned if I write down me a dadburn treatise and no one reads it, then there ain’t no story.  It’s all about communication, and you guys are the ticket.  No readers= No blog.  I like the blog and I like y’all too, so thanks.

        But again, I’ve been a brides-maid before, and I ain’t worried.  On the high school golf team I was sixth man.  Snookers was the star.  He shot 65 to win the State one year, but my contribution was to be sure he passed History.  His picture wasn’t in the yearbook- he was out gambling that day- but he did graduate high school in spite of a year book that might as well have read golf and smoked cigarettes, 1,2,3,4.  He says he owes his academic career to me, but I tell him not to advertise it.

        I won the red ribbon in the Jr. High science project one year.  The guy that won the blue became a brain surgeon.

        And in med school ole Tom Bailey kicked my academic a^^ every time, but like Avis, I tried harder, did my best, and finished second to him once.  I was runner up for most promising Family Doc.  The kid who won quit after one year and switched to Radiology.  I don’t blame him.  He made a bunch of money.  Being a country doc is a lot like playing bluegrass music or writing.  You do it ’cause it’s in your blood.

       One year Warbler said I made the top thirty on the mandolin at Galax, but I think he just said it to make me feel better.  See, the way I learned my baritone part singing was to work off the peg board in Moose’s garage, where Neuse River practices.  I’d go up and down with the pitch as I imagined various tools were the notes.  One time Jen rearranged the pegboard and I missed my Stanley hammer note, though.  

        At any rate, at Galax that year I focused on a handrail and some steps in the stands. I had my routine down, and went up and down the steps in perfect pitch.   All this went fine till some fellow got to making out with his girl right there on the steps I needed to focus on, and I didn’t get my part quite right.  It upset me cause I felt like I let the band down.  We finished 12th that year, but I think we’d made the top ten if that durn fool boy hadn’t been kissing his girl friend on what I had designated as the 3rd tone in the B flat scale.    (Yes, I know it is odd music theory, but I knew a bass player who went by colors and he is a far better musician that I am.) 

        But I ain’t worried about all that runner up business.  Years ago, some football player and I were competing for the prettiest girl at Lake Forest and somehow I won.  It might not a worked out for poor Charlie Brown, but I got to marry the little red-haired girl and we lived happily ever after.

        I am at the age where every day is all excellent, and if I never had any more good fortune in my life I’d be a most lucky fellow.  But at the same time, just between me and my blog buddies, I hope y’all will keep reading me.  Who knows, you might propel me into the top quarter million, and I’m gonna be honest- that tickles me.  So, thanks for coming along for the ride.

Dr. B

Explore posts in the same categories: writer's corner

Tags: writer's corner

You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.