The Springfield Connection

Someone I once knew called Springfield, Missouri "a suburb without a city."

Surrounded by farmland, teased by the Ozark Mountains, and built on holy limestone, Springfield is Hometown, USA. One of its most dubious traits is its ability to spawn the most average white men in the world.

I happen to be one of those men. Average height. Average weight (no snickering). Average, average, average. It gets pretty boring.

But every once in a while, Springfield spits out someone who grabs the country's attention.

Take for instance, Mr. Flashinthepan Aaron Buerge. He is the average white boy banker who became The Bachelor.

I won't spend much time on Buerge (a name too difficult to spell, let alone come from Springfield) because I didn't watch one second of his romp through 25 women on ABC. I know guys who make it through 25 women in one TV season. They generally look happy but usually end up with some social disease...more often than not a really bad case of Arrogance.

He reminds me a lot of Bubba.

He's the guy from my adopted hometown of Greenville, SC who licked up his 15 minutes on ESPN's reality show "Beg, Borrow, and Deal." After winning the show, Bubba now spends his time in Greenville bars asking women if they saw him on TV and ruminating on what he'll do with the portion of the million dollars his team won (ESPN's web site mentions nothing about a cash prize...hmmm...pick up line, maybe). He also says he shot a pilot for the HGTV. Way to go, Bubba. Hope Tiki Bob's is cutting you some free drinks for your celebrity.

Springfield also spawned Brad Pitt. Despite the fact we share a first name, a hometown, and a journalism school (I graduated and he did not), Pitt has morphed from average white guy to a guy who can grow a long beard and oily hair and women will fawn. Women love a good actor.

Perhaps the moral is this: I grew up feeling sub-average in Springfield and thought I had risen above the envy for the status of the big boys in town.

Turns out...I'm still a high school freshman with poofy nipples, relegated to the sidelines by good sense, common decency, and a healthy disdain for unearned fame.

Boy...that sounded bitchy.