Today I am supposed to be consulting a client in Des Moines, IA on how to restore the interior of the old city library.  But instead, I’ve decided that I would rather be consulting some spiced wafers on how best to be eaten–by me. It was easy work, the client totally agreed that I was the best person for the job.

My number one client

So while I was advising the Sweetzels, I had a random flashback to 5th grade.  Our story takes place at an elementary school in suburban Bucks County, on a warm spring afternoon, during what was then known as Field Day.  I think it’s Self-esteem Day or maybe Everyone’s a Winner Day now.  The story isn’t so much about what happened to me as it is about what happened to this kid, whose name happened to be Dieter Lee.

Dieter Lee was relatively nondescript, but had a small following based mostly upon his wise-cracking attitude and swagger.  He was that kid with a smirk on his face who called your mom some name while his toadies laughed.  Mostly harmless, but one of those people you wanted to see get punched in the mouth at least once.

Field Day would prove to be a fateful one for Dieter Lee, because as it turned out, he was the fastest kid in the school.  Now, instead of being the leader of a small gang of creeps, he was the most popular kid in town–in 10 year-old terms, it was sort of like W. getting elected President, because now his smirk had some power behind it.  To use the immortal words, he had political capital and he intended to spend it.  Which he did, doing popular kid stuff like “going out with” the painfully cute blond Lori Ann So-and-So, or getting to eat his lunch at recess.  Total BS.  Eventually, as was foretold, he was made captain of the district Field Day team, and would represent us in the only event that mattered to anybody, the 100-yard dash.  I managed to make the relay team, but that was sort of like being the world’s tallest midget.  The real glory was the sprint, and the smug Dieter Lee was already guaranteeing a victory at the district final.

Field Day: Training Tomorrow's Leaders

So a couple of weeks later we loaded up some school buses and headed over to the High School, where the district Field Day was held in the big football stadium.  Our elementary school would compete against 4-5 other schools.  Because it was 1980, and former hippies were now teachers, we had cool tie-dyed shirts to distinguish our group.  Anyway, after a relatively poor performance by the whole team, and especially my disastrous last-place finish in the relay, I was content to hit the stands and watch and wait for the big moment when our school would be crowned the Lords of elementary school sports. Our savior would be Dieter Lee; as much as I disliked him, I had to root for my team.

So the big event came: the 100 yard dash.  Our squad of neo-hippies gathered in the stands, anxiously awaiting the gun.  Somewhere in the back of the crowd, a very faint chant began, that soon grew into a cacophonous refrain “Dieter LEE! Dieter LEE! Dieter LEE!”.  We all screamed.  The other schools were drown out.  By sheer force of will alone, we would win this event and be redeemed.

The gun sounded, and they were off.  It was looking good for the first half, Dieter Lee was out in front!  Our glee quickly turned to dismay, as three other sprinters overtook him in the final stretch.  He finished fourth, just ahead of a kid who later on in life would be a star of the track team.  Go figure.

Weeks later came the end of the school year, and eventually, the end of elementary school.  Dieter Lee’s star had faded.  He didn’t show up in our new school in the fall.  I’m sure it was because he had moved or his parents had converted to Catholicism and stuck him in parochial school. Or maybe he was so humiliated by his collapse he could not return.

I like to think that it was the latter, because cosmically, he was finally punched in the mouth.

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Well, as you have probably not noticed, Penn’s Army is poised to crest the 10,000 visit mark sometime today or tomorrow.  One of the really cool features of using WordPress is that it tracks your traffic in several different, ultimately useless ways that somehow, like butterflies, rainbows and ear hair, never fail to amaze me.  The problem is, if you really read the statistics carefully, you’ll quickly realize that most of your traffic have absolutely no interest in your blog.

Sally Struthers: no interest in this blog, big interest in Ewoks. Look out, Wicket!

One of the ways people have been led here are through Referrers, like when your doctor says he can’t remove the warts, but he knows someone who can.  That guy totally lied.  Anyway my top 3 referrers this past 10,000 were, in order:  1) pennstoners.org, 1,619 referrals; 2)  sonsofben.net, 257; and 3) bigsoccer.com, with 46.  A big thanks to our friends in Buffalo who contributed a scant 18, although I’M SURE that is probably no reflection on how much traffic they get.

My absolute favorite way to track visitors, however, are the Search Engine Terms.  This is where someone goes to the Google, plugs in, let’s say Sally Struthers, and up pops this blog.  Well, I owe a debt of gratitude to the multitude of Star Wars geeks out there, without whom I would not have had 126 unique visits.  Ewoks was the number one search engine term.  YUB YUB!  This was followed by Conan the Barbarian, Alex Trebek and Keith Moon.  Oh yes, and a couple of people actually searched for Penn’s Army.  But they were probably me.

One last thought on 10,000 clicks: my good friend Mike, who runs the excellent blog Bugs in the News, wanted to know why I didn’t have any ads on the site.  Because it had never occurred to me that somehow I could make money doing this, I looked into it.  Turns out WordPress does not allow clickable ads on their sites, which is too bad, because I was going to buy my wife a new wedding band.  Sorry baby, don’t blame me, I tried.  Besides, you can twist Reynold’s Wrap into all kinds on neat shapes.

So, once the 10,000th click happens, Penn’s Army will be officially on hiatus for re-tooling.  Look for the new, improved, vastly more complicated and interesting blog sometime in late October.  More Ewoks!  More Conan the Barbarian! Lots more Alex Trebek!  OK, maybe not, but definitely more Ewoks.