Saturday, January 1, 2011

What's All This About Jelly?

I'm still knocked out by how my readers not only connect through the various channels such as Twitter and Facebook and this blog and my column and email, but how they casually flow from one to another, even though each has its own style and formula and function.

I'm turned to jelly, but not in the way you think.

One of my readers came up with a real curve, and I'm thrilled it was hit out of the park by my readers and followers.

I was asked to back away from my standard sterling prose and crisp editing with just a single word in the title of my last blog, one of those things that doesn't belong. I was to gather every email reply and Tweet and reply on here that mentioned that the one word seemed out of place, and the person I arranged this with was to donate $100 to a well-known children's charity for each one.

It was a more satisfying Christmas for a platoon of unfortunates, to the level of several thousand dollars.

Doing this again will take some discussion, but this first shot scored in a way no one guessed.

I asked my co-conspirator if this threatened a timely payment of the rent, or meant a meal of pb& j sandwiches, and it didn't. They were ready and willing and able, and called this the most fun and humility they ever expressed signing a check.

There's some talk that this little stunt may take root and sprout an oak, so we'll see. We prefer that the next... um... Easter Egg? be unexpected, so we may plot another angle for 2011.

May I thank my followers for participating in a wholly inadvertent way, and your aid and abetting brought forth some smiles of relief not expected and gratefully appreciated.

It was not just a merry sort of Christmas. It was one where Santa appeared when some were unprepared for his generosity.

And it was delivered to some who didn't have any sort of feel for what the magic of Christmas could mean. This crossed all the lines set up that bound the Christian holiday and all its traditions, at all levels of belief and celebration.

I don't know how to conclude this blog, maybe because that sort of thing has no conclusion.

Just thinking about the graceful good done also turns me to jelly.

--K.H.

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