Thursday, January 6, 2011

Just when you think you’ve heard it all

...along comes The Homeless Man With The Golden Voice.

This sort of heartwarming story -- there have already been more than 15,000 comments on the original article, and the video itself has gone viral on the internet -- usually comes along just before Christmas, sending me into a “We’re just being manipulated by the media so that we can feel all warm and fuzzy about ourselves at Christmas before we go back to ignoring people in need during the rest of the year” rant, but this story waited to surface until the first week of January.

Somehow I don’t feel like ranting as much in January. Perhaps this year the “peace on earth, good will to men” message of the Christmas season actually penetrated my subconscious. Better yet, perhaps it has a residual effect that can never be displaced.

Come to think of it, I didn’t even go through my usual “Bah, humbug!” phase in December.

I must be slipping.


P.S. - The man in the video has a name: Ted Williams (not the famous major-league baseball player who died at the age of 83 in 2002 but whose body his children have had frozen in case he can be revived one day; another Ted Williams. I don’t really know how much demand there will be in the major leagues of the future for a revived formerly 83-year-old player, but then I don’t follow sports all that closely).

Here’s Ted Williams the baseball player in his pre-frozen days:


P.P.S. - Actually, in churches that observe the liturgical year, most of December is known as Advent. Christmas starts on December 25th and lasts twelve days, until the Epiphany on January 6th. And if you are a member of an Eastern Orthodox community, you celebrate Christmas on January 6th anyway because of differences in the Eastern and Western calendars.

Hey, no wonder this story of the other Ted Williams has such a Christmas feel to it. Today is January 6th! It’s still Christmas!

There’s still time for my rant, after all.

8 comments:

  1. The golden-voiced Ted Williams has a lot to overcome. I wish him success in this opportunity that has been presented. I wonder if the media cares enough about such things to follow this story. We need a few Grit-type stories in the news. You do remember Grit, don't you?

    I'm glad you had more to say, today, now that you can post #667. I think I just passed #300, but I was slothful last year.

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  2. Merry Christmas to you and may your table be full of good Ukrainian delights.Do you still make the poppy seed dish?
    I used to love the poppy seed knishes but they don't make them anymore.Soo delicious.
    Yup I think the aim is to make everyone homeless these days.
    The business people gang up on you and make you, the working man, drown in their buggery.
    Never used to be like this.
    At least not in Canada.Even in the depression years, every one had a place to live.
    All we are left with is hope we all don't end up on the street one day. Time to smarten up and fight back. Can;t afford not to.

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  3. Pat, I heard this morning that the video had already received over three million hits and Mr. Williams had been hired by the Cleveland Cavaliers professional basketball team and given a place to live. Truth is stranger than fiction!

    Canadian Lady, you must have me mixed up with some other rhymeswithplague. No one in our home is Ukrainian and we have never made a poppy seed dish. Mrs. RWP is Albanian, though, and she makes a mean avgolemono (egg lemon soup) and spanakopita (spinach pie) even though those particular dishes are Greek. Your Christmas may have had just a little too much eggnog, but I accept your good wishes on behalf of whoever was supposed to receive them.

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  4. I'm betting I'm going to love this blog!
    :)

    ~Mimi
    www.thegoatborrower.blogspot.com

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  5. LMAO

    Right now I'm just wondering how the hell the topic switched from homeless men to christmas to baseball stars. Awesome work dude, you left me spinning.

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  6. Welcome, welcome, two new readers of rhymeswithplague! Mimi Foxmorton (if that really is your name, wink, wink) who has not one, not two, but three active blogs) and Punk Chopsticks (who lives in Malaysia but is not unfamiliar with the good old U.S. of A.) have joined our small but ever-expanding circle.

    Again I say, "Welcome! Welcome!"

    (Is that too effusive? I don't mean to take my earlier readers for granted in any way. You, too, are "Welcome! Welcome!")

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  7. First, you have nothing to say, and now you report that you are unable to rant! Are you dying?

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  8. Snow, no, not dying (I hope), just inexplicably mellowing out, apparently.

    Give me time; I'll be my old curmudgeonly self again.

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