Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Who Do You Look Like?...Revisited

OK. Events of recent days have awakened me from the slumber of my blogging hibernation.

A friend of ours from Florida emailed me in response to my last blog about lookalikes. She reminded me that she always thought, before I grew my beard in 1998, that I looked a lot like Rick Moranis, the once-popular but now-forgotten star of the hit 1989 Disney film "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids". (Despite my repeated refusals to acknowledge that her claim has any credibility whatsoever, this determined friend doggedly has made the same argument for years. I've never admitted to her, however, that a couple of people in Kentucky once said the very same thing to me!)

My Florida friend has gone so far as to suggest that I post on my blog an old photo of my beardless self alongside an image of Rick Moranis. But, as I seem to recall, several years ago, a volcanic eruption or a tsunami--I don't remember which--destroyed all the photos of me from birth up until I grew my beard. (I least that's what I seem to recall.) So, apart from me being shaved or "Nair"-ed against my will, there is no way that one can accurately test out and evaluate my friend's far-flung hypothesis.

I will acknowledge, however, that back in the 1970s, when I was in college, there were some people who thought I then looked like actor John Ritter, who at the time was starring in the popular TV sitcom "Three's Company." Then, in the early 1980s, while I was in seminary, there were a few deranged ministerial students that thought I bore a strange resemblance--and let me emphasize the word "strange"-- to the then high profile televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. Sometime thereafter, I started combing my hair differently so people would stop sending me their tithes or asking me to autograph their bibles.

But I suffered the most severe blow to my ego just this week. (And this is what prompted me to rise up and write this blog entry.) Sunday afternoon, one of our church members told me that they had been getting their little grandchild ready for church early that morning. A religious program was on television at the time and the little child, with a quizzical look on his face, asked, "Why is Pastor Danny on TV?" His grandma turned around and--guess what-- it was the Reverend John Hagee preaching on the tube!

Hmm. I think I need a makeover. Or a NutriSystem subscription.

Think about it. In the 1970s, I was John Ritter. By the 1980s, I had morphed into Jimmy Swaggart. By the 1990s, I had evolved into Rick Moranis. And now, somehow, I've turned into John Hagee. Wow! I didn't see that one coming! One wonders what the next decade will hold. Could I potentially become a clone of the late Orson Welles, or the spitting image of President William Howard Taft? Only time will tell.

Of course, I've been so self-focused about all of this that I haven't even stopped to consider how these comparisons might be irritating Moranis, Swaggart and Hagee! After all, those guys might not appreciate being told that they look like Danny Davis. Hmm.

Pastor Danny