Years back the great Russell Baker in The New York Times said, What’s wrong with being Number 17? Why do we have to be Numero Uno?
Well, we’re Number One At Guns, isn’t that good enough? More mass shootings. We have barely taken in Buffalo and here comes another down the interstate. Tulsa? Can’t bear to write about them at the moment. Number One.
Some thoughts.
If you can’t be number one, why be at all?
Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, even the accursed Jokervitch? Tennis, anyone? Why play?
If you can’t be Elon Musk (does he smell musky?, and did you see that his mother is featured in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, you cannot make this stuff up) why bother being a run-of-mill Mark Cuban billionaire when your Dallas Mavericks, even with the sublime Luka, are never going to beat the Golden State Warriors. So pack it up, Markie.
I was regaling my dinner hosts with the fact that my a great friend was the proud student of Doris Lessing at Sarah Lawrence College.
Small problem. Nobel Prize winning novelist, only the 11th woman to win the award, never taught there or anywhere. So friend could not have been her prize student.
Friend says that this is what happens, people get old and make things up.
But I actually believed what I was saying. Fancy that.
Friend also says that she was never anyone’s favorite student.
I remind her that in her Russian class she spent her time staring out the window and that her teacher was stunned that she had learned so much Russian. Swear.
Back to number one.
My youngest daughter, now 21, was, until 15, an exquisite tap dancer. She lived for tap and talked about starting her own company. Everyone, I mean everyone, said, The next Michelle Dorrance.
Then she suddenly lost interest. And I mean suddenly. No longer able to shoot for number one? Have not a clue.
Now doing extensive research on public housing, which started big-time in Chicago, her old man’s hometown. She asked me, Daddy, when you were growing up, did you know about The Projects? Not at all. We were uptown in Slava Ukraine. Glory to it forever.
My middle daughter, 27, is taking over the New York banking world. The Times called her mother the “most powerful woman on Wall Street.” Number One? Pretty good shot.
When I suggest to her that she go to law school, which I do with suffocating frequency, she looks at me as if I have two heads.
That’s it! I’ll be number one at having Two Heads!
O, well.
My guess is that that award has already been claimed, many times over.
More guns, anyone?
Lonnie Carter is a playwright, Obie winner and his signature play is “The Sovereign State of Boogedy Boogedy.”
Why Numero Uno?