Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers )

If you are still reading, the reason for and the explanation of the Title of today’s Post,  is that we have a Contest coming up at the end of this week, the Wakefield Doctrine Friday the 13th Post-writing Contest.
We are hoping to get a lot of entries (to the Contest).
We have a Grand Prize and we have a (secret) Judge. We will be Posting the Posts (lol) as links in Fridays’ Post. So when you come here this Friday the 13th, you will see Author Names and (the) titles of their submissions, and these Titles will be linked back to the Author’s website. Lots of good reading!
As to the criteria for judging the entries and awarding the Grand Prize? …you the Reader will have the opportunity to vote and Comment on each of the submitted Posts! …and we have a (secret) judge who will read all the Posts and all the Readers Comments and then, on April 17th will announce the Grandest of Winners!
That lucky life form will then sit by their mailbox/P.O.Box/or other preferred means of delivery and wait for the Prize to be delivered. We will all feel joy, for that person has been judged to be the Best of Us all! And as for the rest of us, non-Winners,  for once in our collectively self-involved lives, we will join with others in a positive emotion, pooling our good wishes for this Writer-Above-Writers! In a spasm of selflessness ( a sensation that some of us may feel for many years to come ), we will give of ourselves to this other person, the person who was chosen over us! Fun? Maybe! Difficult? Surely for all of us and especially difficult for a few us! Worth the effort? How can you ask that!? You will be part of something bigger than yourself, bigger than you and one other person, hell! …big as can be! So get to work!

So that concludes our Mandatory Monday Post!

(Hey, did I ever tell you the ‘Easter Egg Hunt from Hell’ story?  It is a tale of one clark, the adult world ( read: rogerian) and a contrived competition that totally sealed my personality type into that of a pre-dominant clark.)

Anyway, the year was 1958! (or maybe it was 1957) (it could even have been Easter of 1956) on Martha’s Vineyard.¹ It was Easter Sunday. The Hunt was held in the Park and all the parents in the world brought their children to the Easter Egg Hunt. As we walked to the Starting Line, it was explained to me that.  “…now clark, when they say go, you have to run and find all the hidden eggs that you can, before the other children do“. Fine, easy enough.
Until I saw the crowd… there had to be at least 3,000 people there, ( to my 5 year old mind ), the adults were all standing in a group, while their little children were standing in a roughly rectangular shaped group behind a bright pink ribbon, which was suspended between two Posts, about 30 feet apart. And beyond the ribbon was a clear expanse of grass of about 150 feet and then there were bushes and benches and fountains and other parklike features.

(blah, blah blah!!! )  Hey, you know we are talking about a clark, right?  and the group of adults and judges and the guy with the Starter Pistole? rogers!!  and the crowd of kids?…pretty much all rogers.
If you have been reading this blog and paying attention at all, you know what happens next…. as I am pushed by my family to get towards the front of the starting group, I am thinking desperately  ” OK…find the eggs… are they real eggs or are they candy…where would they hide them…. where would I hide them…I had better win this thing, they are all so excited….what is that guy telling all these kids??!  Did he say GO??!”  …and off I ran!
Got about 30 feet,  thinking, ‘boy,  am I ahead of everyone!’  then I looked back. At the kids. At the adults. At the un-broken pink ribbon.  They waited until I walked back to the Starting Line, the  Starter/Announcer guy did say good things about my enthusiasm.
When the Easter Egg Hunt gun went off for real, I walked, not slowly not too quickly, across the field to find the stupid hidden eggs.

Good news for modern clarks!   …for the Wakefield Doctrine Friday the 13th Post-writing Contest, there will be no starting gun, there will be no Pink Ribbon but there will be a day when all the Contestants will appear with their Posts. This will be Friday. Now if you want to enter early, that’s fine! We will simply hold your Post in a draft of the Post that will appear this Friday.
So send it in.
Remember!!! Only one Rule!!  The Title of your Post must have within it the phrase ‘a dead balloon is a dead balloon’… that phrase can be at the beginning of the Title, the middle of the Title or even the end ( of the Title) but it must be there. Otherwise write whatever you feel like writing.

1)  Martha’s Vineyard is an island off Cape Cod, which in turn, is off the New England coast in the US. Considered a part of the State of Massachusetts, at least by the politicians, Martha’s Vineyard was a 45 minute ride on a Ferry from Woods Hole. It was an island in every sense of the word, geographically, geologically, demographically and most importantly, sociologically. There were people who were born on the Vineyard (yours truly) and there was everyone else. …and never the twain shall meet, as the old, somewhat confusing saying goes.