By Jim Nolan
Buffalo, NY – Proponents of the Second Amendment claim we'll only get their guns when we pry them from their cold, dead hands. Well, I have some items you'll have to pry away from my lifeless fingers, too, although none of them as yet enjoy constitutional protection.
1) My "Lord of the Rings" extended version movie collection. I've watched LOTR so many times even my sons have tired of it, and my wife has threatened to go on a long vacation with an uncertain return date. I think my ever more frequent quoting the characters "Muster the Rohirrim! is finally proving too much for her.
2) My digital recording of "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys. Four minutes and 46 seconds of pure synthpop mopey deliciousness. When I hear it I am 24 again.
3) The Code of the Woosters, by P.G. Wodehouse. The greatest work of art in the English language, and coincidentally, the funniest. In fact, every single word in it is funny, including the prepositions.
4) The eight-millimeter footage shot by my dad on a hand-cranked Kodak movie camera back in the '60s. Dad was an auteur of the backyard birthday party. Ingmar Bergman was obsessed with death; my father was obsessed with Vin-Chet cakes.
5 & 6) A Ted's hot dog and an Anderson's custard. Wanna bite? Get your own.
7) My collection of MAD Magazines from the early '70s, back when they were "35 cents cheap." I met Al Jaffe at a cartoonists' party last December. I embarrassed myself by fawning all over him. I mean, it was Al Jaffe. What else was I supposed to do? OK, maybe I didn't need to actually genuflect.
8) My CDs of Jim Dale reading the seven Harry Potter books. The 5th book alone is 27 hours long. We listened to it in its entirety on a family vacation to Nova Scotia. The boys and I were enthralled; my wife began to develop a nasty twitch as I put in CD #19.
The Founding Fathers were wise enough to allow the Constitution to change with the times, and Americans have done well by it except for the Prohibition mistake, which Buffalonians of the time considered more of a recommendation than an actual law. Still, I will not push for a 28th Amendment protecting my right to beef on 'weck. That right does not yet seem under threat. And right now the federal government has more on its plate than delectable Buffalo food.
Listener Commentator Jim Nolan is a New York City advertising executive who grew up in Snyder.
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