What it means to be a Dewey
- Michelle Wood: SWCD
- May 19, 2014
- 553
She's smart, slender, brilliant, beautiful, insightful, intelligent, kind and compassionate.
Oh … and she's competitive as hell.
For example, when she was turning maybe four years old, her parents (my brother and his bride) gave her a wonderful birthday party, one that included a game of musical chairs.
For the uninitiated, the object of the game was to make certain that once the music stopped, you had a place to land and, diabolically, there was always one more player than chairs available.
It required foresight, planning and a certain killer instinct and the jubilarian hardly ever lost. Sure, there were other lame games and lots of presents and more friends than you could convince to come to my funeral, but what it came down to was, well, winning.
She never got to know her grandmother but buried somewhere deep in her DNA, there's a whisper of Mom's mantra; to wit, if they're keeping score, the object is to win.
That's Dewey 101.
Mom used to tell my sister, who was far smarter than she'd ever let on, “There's nothing wrong with being brighter than the guy you're dating. … Don't ever be afraid to show off your brains.”
Of course, my sister went the bikini/biker route, but that's another story for another time.
Anyway, my brother happened to have his camcorder – this was an incredible device, akin to the one the Apollo astronauts used on the moon – focused on his daughter as she, well, lost the game musical chairs.
At her own birthday party.
Not acceptable.
Flashing her inner and innate Dewey chromosomes, she glared at the camera and you could almost hear her preparing her appeal to a higher court.
My wife – then my fiancée – saw that footage and said, “Michael, you know what? Your niece has got that same look you get when something, well …”
“What?” I asked. “What are you saying?”
Well,” she said, faltering a bit, “you don't like, um, losing.”
I stared at her.
“Rewind the tape,” I said. “I want to remember this.”
And I reminded myself to add an extra little something in my niece's next birthday card.
Because, you see, there's nothing at all wrong with wanting to win, though these days, no one seems to be willing to admit that there's something valuable to be learned from being a good loser.
They don't even use the word “loser” anymore. It's as if everyone who enters a contest is entitled to some kind of “participation” trophy.
Puh-lease.
If you never feel the sting of losing, how in the world will you ever understand and savor and hold high the elation that accompanies knocking down all comers?
True, my niece wasn't alive when the family's generational fingerprint was being pressed into her as-yet-unborn self, but she got it right away.
That musical chairs footage proved it in much the same way as the Zapruder film blew away the Warren Commission's single-gunman theory.
But now I'm rethinking my genetic inclination toward thinking of all losers as, well, losers.
Some folks just aren't competitive. They give hints when playing Trivial Pursuit, they ignore reneging in euchre and they laugh when someone tries to make “QZJ” a word in Scrabble.
In short, they're just in it for fun and fellowship, not the outcome.
What, you could rightly ask, is wrong with that?
Who gets hurt?
OK, taking a deep breath now …
EVERYONE.
That's who gets hurt when you play a game and don't care if you lose.
Ever hear of Pete Rose?
He earned a lifetime ban from baseball because he gambled on games his team – the Cincinnati Reds – was playing.
He never bet on them to lose which, I think, will one day (long after he's dead) tip the scales in his Hall of Fame favor. True, it's not much in the way of mitigating evidence, but it beats trying to lose.
Enough of this gibberish.
Never cared about Pete Rose.
I think he's pretty much responsible for the early and untimely the death of A. Bartlett Giamatti, then the commissioner of baseball who, just days after he'd slain his Moby Dick, collapsed and was no more.
I've been considering the fact that I have no plans made in the event of my demise.
You've probably got it all mapped out: what kind of service you want, where it'll be held, what kind of music will be played, the hole in the ground you've reserved, the whole final act, including the amount your insurance will cover and what'll be on the post-burial menu.
Toasted cheese sandwiches are always good and you can't beat a steaming bowl of tomato soup. Maybe a Fudge bar for dessert.
Me?
Not so much.
If I were to shrug off this mortal coil at this precise moment, two things would happen.
First, I'd be really ticked off that I hadn't had time to finish this fantastic piece of journalistic excellence, perhaps a prize-winning column … and:
Second, my wife would have no choice but to drive my corpse to the nearest beach and kick my remains into the surf, preferably at high tide with an accompanying offshore breeze.
Because I haven't bought a plot, back home or down here. I suppose it's that Dewey genetic supposition kicking in, the one that suggests that the usual rules don't apply to me.
That's just the way we're wired.
Has it meant heartache and heartbreak and humiliations too many to list?
Sure.
But has it also meant scaling heights and exhilarating in the excellence that comes with immense luck and more hard work than anyone could possibly imagine?
No doubt.
But I keep going back to my niece and that look on her face when there was no chair left for her in the game, one that she knew she'd win.
It was defiant and subtle, as if she's just inhaled a whole dose of Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca,” blended with a lot of Kathleen Turner in “Body Heat,” leavened with Diane Keaton's immortal “Annie Hall.”
So, where does that leave us?
I don't know about you, but I'm heading back to the shore this weekend.
You can't lose there.
And I have a beach chair.
Mike Dewey can be emailed at CarolinamikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560. His Facebook page awaits your presence.