More Satire from “Heck of a Guy” Blogster

I can’t keep up with Crystal Lake “Heck of a Guy” blogger Allan Showalter.

In a recent post, he seems to say that I am in danger of losing the label “political blogger” because I did a story on a high school girl’s rowing race this past weekend. It was called the Chicago Junior Rowing Championship.

He has created this graphic of my driving my car over the racing skiffs, which, once I figured out I was supposed to be the driver, amused me.

In an email, Showalter suggested I pilot the Goodyear Blimp. That would be an excellent observation platform.

The subtitle of the article is

Row Girls Row
Go Cal Go

Showalter covered the Gay Games, as did I, but can’t work up enthusiasm to watch another rowing regatta.

Now, I’ll admit that the motorboat regattas that I watched as a kid at the Miles River Yacht Club in St. Michaels, Maryland, had more action and, frankly, more appeal.

But you know there will never be a motorboat regatta on Crystal Lake, even though it would actually draw spectators.

So, we must be satisfied with rowing regattas and the Cardboard Boat Regatta—certainly the most spectator-friendly.

“So, why did McHenry County Blog cover this regatta?” Showalter asks.

“What’s in it for Cal? Is there a (well) hidden political agenda? Is it the self-aggrandizement that will inevitably follow this astounding sports scoop?

“OK, most of Cal’s posts are openly political as all get-out (and, for what it’s worth, his politics are incongruent with mine) so he may be promoting one partisan goal or another. And it is, one supposes, possible that some individuals spending too much time publishing a daily blog sans commercials or salary might be partially motivated by one of the less egregious variants of narcissism. (And here he has a footnote 4, which I don’t know how to replicate.)

Footnote 4. On second thought, forget the narcissism notion – that’s just crazy talk. Independent bloggers are self-sacrificing, altruistic, and good looking folk with smiles on their lips and songs in their hearts.

And, Showalter has found a role model for me in Flash Evans, Camera News Hawk.

Never heard of Flash Evans?

Me neither.

Two books were written in 1940, two years before I was born, by Mildred A. Wirt (as Frank Bell), the author of the Nancy Drew girls’ mystery series.

Flash wants to be a newspaper photographer and is the only one around with a camera when two notorious criminals are captured.

Sounds a bit like me when I was the only photographer around when the unannounced minor league baseball stadium promoters came to spin their dream web around the minds of the McHenry County College Board.

Or being the only one to take pictures through the (soon closed) Venetian blinds of the screaming woman board member in the Prairie Grove School’s library before being threatened with arrest for such activity, plus laughing out loud and, as Showalter puts it, “and suspicion of intent to heckle.”

Tune in tomorrow for another of Showalter’s rowing regatta stories that I missed last year.


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