WebKittyn Warbles

I've gotten hooked hard once again on the West Wing. They keep teasing me with mention of Alan Alda. For me this is no small thing.

We all have people we've aspired to be like, call them role models, examples or what have you. I've never really gotten into celebrity worship and I positively loathe gossip shows on TV but there was one fictional character I discovered at a young and impressionable age and it because my mission in life to resemble this character as much as possible.

This would of course be Hawkeye Pierce.

I don't know exactly what it was that got me started, the whole M*A*S*H* ensemble was amazing but Hawkeye was exactly who I wanted to be. Alan Alda played him with deadpan wit, a dry sense of humour, compassion and intelligence.

I studied him every chance I had, facial expressions and his delivery. I stole my dad's red velour bathrobe to take to camp with me and I wore that bathrobe like a duster to every meal and bit of free time. My best bud through many summers of camp was also named BJ (for Bonnie June) so that only helped enhance my obsession. I kept that bathrobe like a treasure until the fire destroyed it in 97 and broke my damn heart.

I think my finest moment was during an episode of MASH a friend of mine who did not know about my obsession with Hawkeye actually said to me "you remind me of Hawkeye with the way you joke."

I know Hawkeye was a fictional character and there are others whom I have tried to take a bit of and incorporate into who I am, Nietzsche and Ayn Rand to name two, but humour is real important and most of mine comes from Hawkeye.

So let us hope that the West Wing stops teasing me and he doesn't come on and end up with Alzheimer's like he did on ER, damn near crushing me.

Man, I wish I still had that bathrobe.