Diary of a Cage Fighter (Journalist) In Training

Well, I suppose I’ve put this off long enough. It’s time for a little post about the anniversary of the day this miracle baby came into the world….Ok, so that’s a title that I gave myself and no one else uses it, but I consider myself to be very fortunate. I mean, before they were married my mother was in the convent and my father was in Vietnam after being drafted. Combine that with the fact that I was their final child, and I think that I register just below a “John Madden forms a coherent thought and expresses it eloquently” ranking on the “What Are the Odds?” scale. Perhaps I just have illusions of grandeur about myself, but I don’t think that I am exaggerating the significance of this. I can only imagine what it was like during the days and weeks leading up to my arrival. Wait, why don’t I tell you how I picture the momentous occasion and then you can tell me if I am delusional? Alright, here we go. In the days and weeks leading up to “The Birth” the staff at St. Rita’s hospital realized that they were about to witness something truly amazing. Doctors started to become nervous about their role in delivering the miracle baby. No one wanted to risk living with the onus that he was the one who mutilated this otherwise unblemished child. Rumors abounded about just how astonishing this baby was. Some claimed he could already talk. Others “overheard” that his ultrasound showed a faint halo. One nurse even remarked, “I heard that he is already a genius. A baby like that could make a lot of money…I also noticed that there isn’t much security around the recovery rooms. Who thinks I could sneak in?” That nurse was later fired. With all of the hype surrounding the birth of the unlikely offspring, the hospital was a media circus when, on August 28, 1985, James Russell Tobe was born. Reporters and camera crews gathered outside the entrance, desperate for a glimpse of this newborn celebrity. When the local news stations ran their stories that evening, they all labeled him as a fraud. He couldn’t talk, or walk, or use an abacus correctly…in fact, he spent much of his days sleeping and eating! His only remotely redeeming feature was his dimples, but those can only get a kid so far. There you have it. Twenty years later, I still feel like my life is building towards something great. I still sleep and eat quite often, but I like to think that I have become significantly more intelligent over the years. I don’t know how this journalism career is going to work out, but one thing’s for sure: those dimples are still paying dividends today.

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