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Men of Distinction

Man of Distinction, or, Where have you gone, Joe DiPootero? -- Diary of a Nobody features the adventures of lower-middle-class Victorian Charles Pooter, which I mention as a way of inserting an unrelated anecdote about Joe Bolda, with whom I played baseball a couple of years. Unlike the rest of us, Joe Bolda didn't want to be playing baseball, and was always screwing up. Coach Keyes (who taught at the former Judson School, the current Judson Estates, which sit atop the site of the former Judson School) used to cringe when the ball was hit in Joe Bolda's direction. After each error, Coach Keyes would yell, "Joe, Joe, JOE! Nooooooo, Joe!" (To this day, my sister and mother, who used to come to my games, often use that macro.) As the ball would zoom toward Joe, from the other outfield positions you could always hear Joe's dismayed voice say, "Oh, pooter!"

Joe Bolda is still one of my heroes.

I wonder what happened to Joe Bolda? One imagines him as a captain of industry. Where have you gone, Joe DiPootero? Maybe I will find out one day when Joe Bolda types his name into Google.