Blogger tastelessness? Not here

(603 words)

Sometimes someone says something about something I’ve written that causes me to shelve my topical plans to address their comment.

Happened again yesterday.

So if you’re clicking in today to read if I’ll be in Pittsburgh tonight to attend the Barry Manilow concert and why that wouldn’t be without precedent, sorry, you’ll just have to wait until Monday.

Today I need to respond to a charge that yesterday’s post was tasteless.

Was it?

Hell, no. 

It was a 702-word essay headlined, “That’s MISTER Shrapnel to you!” Three days after the Boston Marathon bombing, I thought it was appropriate to share the nugget that shrapnel was named after British artillery officer Henry Shrapnel (1761-1842). I had no idea and thought it was interesting enough to warrant a timely post.

I fancied it a life-affirming spin on how names become words and how I’m glad nothing I do will 200 years from now lead anyone to say someone was killed by a deadly shower of rodell.

Was it too soon? Too irreverent? Was the tone too what Father Francis Mulcahy might call “jocular?”

In hindsight, yes.

Do I regret it?

Just a bit. Not much. Hardly at all.

I am of the mindset that if we do not move on right away after every tragedy, we’ll never move at all.

Our national tragedies happen with such breakneck rapidity, to not immediately move on would result in our being paralyzed by perpetual grieving.

By any decent standard, we should still be utterly bereft over Sandy Hook. No one should be working, attending ball games, laughing in coffee shops -- doing anything -- until we as a nation resolve that such horror will never happen again.

But, geez, that seems awfully difficult, doesn’t it? Certainly it does for the esteemed men and women of the United States Senate.

So in lieu of working solutions, we need to live every day like the Whos in Whoville did the very morning the Grinch stole Christmas. We must cheerfully persevere understanding bad things are going to happen and that we will always roll with all the punches.

It’s now more than ever imperative to celebrate every day we’re alive.

If that’s a controversial position, so be it. I’ll have to live with it even as anyone accusing me of doing anything controversial feels to me like wearing a shirt that’s too tight around the neck. It makes me uncomfortable.

This puts me at odds with many other writers who aspire to being edgy.

They assume the worst in everyone. They fan conspiracy theories. They fixate on daily doom.

In a world full of so much opinionated edginess, I like to think my blog provides a humble respite from all the contrived controversies intended to stir up opposing comments and agitated readers.

I could never pull that off. Wouldn’t want to even if I was assured it would lead to widespread exposure.

On the contrary, I aspire to this being a near daily repository for feel-good platitudes about life and love.

I guess that kind of makes me the Barry Manilow of bloggers!

Either way, I’m grateful to you and anyone who takes the time to read my stuff. I hope you’ll all stay with me even on days when you read something here that might challenge one of your sacred cows. And that goes for all you non-Hindu readers, too.

I promise to try and keep it fair and above the fray -- except on days when the fray looks fun.

So thank you. I hope none of you ever goes away.

‘cause I can’t smile without you.

Related . . .

• I cry, I fart; more on Newtown

• Making bad days better

That's MISTER Shrapnel to you!

(702 words)

Shrapnel killed three people at the Boston Marathon. Shrapnel killed thousands in the Iraq War. Shrapnel’s been killing ‘em by the millions since clear back before the Civil War.

That’s a lot of lethal mayhem for a guy who’s been dead since 1842.

“Pleased to meet you! (who? who?) Hope you guess my name! (who? who?) What’s puzzlin’ you (who? who?) is the nature of my game!”

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Henry Shrapnel.

The nature of his game is death.

I learned last November during a tour of the Gettysburg battlefield that shrapnel was a dude.

The information struck me as so odd, which is better than having it strike me as nails, ball bearings and shell fragments.

I’ve been hearing war news since I was old enough to hear. So shrapnel’s been with me my hole life. It’s one of those words that seems to instantly convey exactly what it is even as the word itself offers no clue.

I have trouble wrapping my still-intact brain around the fact that shrapnel is nimble. It is both explosively propelled fragments of death and a white-haired old grandfather.

It is a thousand pitiless metal shards capable of tearing off your leg and a country gentleman who probably enjoyed gardening in his fine English estate.

Henry Shrapnel was born in 1761 in quaint Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire, England. His portrait shows a handsome gent whose mirthful eyes twinkle like he’s about to ask a small child to pull his finger.

He spent many mornings waking up figuring out ways to kill people with whom he disagreed.

In 1874 he was a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. Back then he could fire a cannon ball at any sharp-eyed infantry and they’d see it coming and take a quick self-preservational step to the left or right, maybe with their tongues sticking out. It frustrated him when the shot would punch a hole in maybe a barn and not one in some angry Spaniard.

So he invented a hollow projectile that discharged via a timed fuse. He loaded the casing with shot that would rain down and through enemy personnel.

That was in 1803 and 210 years later the very same principle is still widely used, as  was evidenced in the Boston Marathon bombing.

It was a game changer weapon and in 1814, the British government recognized his achievement and awarded him 1,200 British pounds per year -- about $90,000 -- for life.

He lived to the ripe old age of 80 and died in 1842 at his grand estate in Southampton.

I guess one of the reasons I’m surprised shrapnel is Shrapnel is because I’ve never met nor heard of another Shrapnel, while I have heard of billions of shrapnels. 

It would be different if I’d have ever met a Burt Shrapnel, a Frank Shrapnel or maybe a Mick Shrapnel. I guess the closest would be a Mick Jagger, which is sort of ballpark.

I found an interesting website called www.HowManyOfMe.com that claims to know the exact ranking of every single proper and surname in America.

It says there are fewer than 117 people in the U.S. with the last name Shrapnel.

By contrast, it says there are 519 American Rodells. I know exactly nine of them, including one Chris Rodell who Facebook friended me when he saw we have the same name.

He lives in Montana, seems friendly, and as far as I can tell the only things we have  in common are we’re both on Facebook and we’re both named Chris Rodell.

I’m glad none of the other 510 Rodells have so far done anything notorious. I vaguely recall my father telling me he’d once read Rodell is Hebrew word that means “Little Wheel.”

One of these days I promise to look into it.

For now, I’m just glad I’m not Chris Shrapnel, although that might become my stage name if I ever decide to engage in professional mixed marital arts.

I think it would be tough going through life with a name that connotes so much bloody death.

I’m right now happy being who I am, a little wheel forever eager to get on a real roll.

Related . . .

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