BESIDE MYSELF: Ruminations on the Daytona

Mencken was right

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken,
writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

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I'm Roberta Morris. Maybe you've met me, but don't recognize me. No one does these days, because I keep making rather dramatic changes to my hair. I've recently given up blonde and reverted to my natural brunette in what I'm calling my "Christianne Amanpour Lookalike" phase.

In the course of a very odd career, I've been a freelance journalist and copywriter, an English teacher, the owner of a small ad agency, a social activist, the manager of a huge corporate Web site, and a fundraiser. I've lived in Rhode Island, Manhattan, rural Massachusetts, lower Westchester, and suburban New Jersey.

In this incarnation, I'm a resident of Chapel Hill, NC, where I've installed myself and my cat in a sweet little condo with a fenced garden and gates that open onto what they call a lake. In reality, it's a large pond inhabited mostly by carnivorous turtles, raucous geese, and a few haphazardly hybridized ducks. One horrible day, I actually watched the first of these attack and consume one of the last. It wasn't pretty.

These days I pretend to be semi-retired, but I'm actually freelancing as a writer, Web author/designer, and editor. If I can help you with this sort of thing,

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Ruminations on the Daytona

I have no idea why I watch the Daytona 500, but it's two years in a row that I've done this. I suspect that I'm trying to figure out why this racing business has become the biggest sports attraction in the country.

Perhaps it's that, for many people, it seems accessible. You don't need a perfect body; you don't even have to train. You just have to know how to drive a car real well and find someone who'll fund your ride.

Maybe it's all the machinery, a glorification of the ordinary. The guy who changes the tires becomes part of a heroic team.

Maybe it's the dance with death; the next curve could be your last.

Last year, the Daytona occasioned something truly remarkable. There was the usual religious invocation before the race - "bless us, bless them, bless the machines" - that sort of thing. But the ending was the grabber. In a Southern accent, the minister said..."Shalom!"

It's the New South indeed.