Message Board Fixed!

Good day, Citizens.

I've finally, after a few days of wrangling and someone cutting the internet cable in the neighborhood, gotten the message board working. Sorry to hear that Aussie is having trouble with the fine people of London. . . What did you expect? Everyone over there is so non-confrontational- of course they would dredge up your wallet like magic and expect that you wouldn't make a fuss when it was returned. You should have turned over that table. . .

Anyhow, the message board is working and we're sponsoring three contests for our intrepid readers. If you've chosen to spend some of your time reading the Long Crawl, obviously you're someone of above average intelligence and taste. Congratulations.

Now, we're going to separate the real creative ones from the scraps. On the message board, linked on the right hand side of the page, you'll find a new category entitled "Interactive". Under this heading there are three new tabs for our three contests to get you involved. One is for your submissions regarding new Olympic sports. Aussie Wallet Theft has already been taken.

Secondly and thirdly, you can submit your original Haikus and Limericks. I've provided samples to get you started. At the end of September, we'll vote on winners to these two contests and announce winners. If everything goes according to plan, however, we'll feature these original, reader-submitted poems throughout the book that will be published at the conclusion of the Long Crawl, unless we pull a Magellan and don't make it home alive. Put your best work out there ladies- you will be recognized.

Finally, I'd like to recognize three early friends of the Long Crawl and bestow upon them their official Long Crawl handles. These are the three people that have done the most thus far to get us recognized. Bless them.

First of all- this friend of the Long Crawl will be known as Golem. His real initials are B.N. He is a loss prevention agent during the day, a hospitality specialist at night, and proud father of two adorable children. This person is one of the founders of a group that has become an official friend of the Long Crawl- the group known a Leisure Wednesday- a group dedicated to taking one mid-week holiday each year and making it the New Sabbath- a day of rest and respite from the toils of modern American life. Thanks Golem, you will be remembered.

Secondly, we would like to thank the Belle, initials C.H., as our second benefactor. Belle is the coolest girl anyone could hope to meet. She actually frightens men based on the fact that she'd the ideal girl you'd want to be around. She's smart, funny, knows sports, can carry a lucid conversation, etc-- and it's impossible to find that critical fault that forms an exit door for men. Guy's like to have that exit door- that fault that gives us a quick exit when we feel trapped or engaged past our comfort zone too early. The Belle doesn't have that crack in the foundation, and it seems that men might avoid getting brought into a situation that can't be easily exploited with a well lit exit sign. Good for The Belle. She'll be happy, or at least seem graciously so. We can only hope that her happiness will come as more than having a wealth of really good friends.

Our third Long Crawl benefactor will be called Butterball. Why Butterball? WHY NOT!?! Yeah, Butterball is bravest little Butterball we know. He's a young guy, trying to get the world figured out. He's brave enough to step onto the field of full contact sport with grown men. Aussie pointed this out after Butterball stepped onto the rugby pitch with grown men and held his own. He's not the most athletic or the smartest, but he has the most heart and deserves the rewards that come with that attribute. Awhile back, I decided that Butterball had sent us enough readers from his high school (yeah, he's still in high school), that we ought to make Fairfax High the Official High School of the Long Crawl. The three of us debated whether or not it was appropriate to make a project, in which drinking factors heavily, the thing to read for people under the drinking age. I agreed with Aussie on that point for awhile until I considered my own high school experience.

Your friend Yankee went to the greatest high school in the entire United States- Louisville Male High School. I recently unearthed my yearbooks from LMHS and, reading the comments my friends wrote in the margins, realized that I've never quite lived up to the person I was in high school. This is different from a lot of people I know, but I seem to miss the person that I was back then- always happy, never moody or disappointed with the world or the hand that I'd been dealt. There is a lot from those years that I didn't realize that I missed out on. Now, I'm a lot older and I've seen some of the worst that humanity has to offer. I've seen the knives in peoples backs and I've regretted the few that I've put in. I've noticed and have come to regret the cynicism that creeps in as you get old. That person- the young Yankee- over a decade ago- could have easily stood up to a lot more pressure and bad cards and ugliness than the modern Yankee. There's something to learn there.

Yeah, there's a drinking element to the Long Crawl- its part of what makes it interesting, engaging, and funny. The three crawlers are from completely different backgrounds, but at the end of the day, we all see the fundamental worth in each other and in other people in general and that's what we're trying to illustrate in this project. Butterball is a kid, not old enough to buy a pack of cigarettes or a lottery ticket. Not yet old enough to have his number pulled and have to carry a rifle against another nation in a draft like our parents did.

Ehh, anyway, the reason I got over the not-supporting-underage-drinking criterion was by remembering one alumnus (among others. Where are you, Chitwood?) of my old high school and how he's inspired me to not only write but to be observant and analytical of my surroundings, looking for the meaning of things.

Some forty years before I graduated from LMHS, the greatest Doctor of Journalism ever- maybe the only Doctor of Journalism ever- graduated from the same school. Hunter S. Thompson, the great father of Gonzo journalism walked the halls of the same school. I don't want to encourage illegal consumption of controlled substances, but I've always gotten a lot from Thomson and I've never been a drug user. Butterball stays on a patron of the Long Crawl.

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me. --HST

Alright, this got sentimentally out of hand. God bless Golem, Belle, and Butterball. Keep reading and submit your sports and poems on the message board. Talk to you soon.

Nothing more useless than an English dentist,
Yankee.