KEYS TO THE KEYS

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE KEYS.

1. Jose came to the realization today that with his new blog, it is completely possible that there could be five or perhaps even six people reading the KEYS who are not SoSH members, SoSH lurkers or members of Jose’s small circle of family and friends. Perhaps even seven. With this in mind, Jose thought that it might be worthwhile to explain a little bit about what the KEYS are and why they are the way they are.

The first thing to explain is probably why the KEYS always travel in threes.

The answer is not a simple as it may seem. It relates to the mystical power of the number three that has been known for generations and held secret by ancient orders in London , Jerusalem and the deepest, darkest part of the Amazon jungle. Did you know the awful secret that 3 is the only integer between 2 and 4? Did you dare guess the terrible truth that 3 is the absolute value of not only 3 but –3 as well? Could you have imagined in even your darkest fears that 3 is the square root of 9 and the cube root of 27? There were 3 stooges (sort of), 3 Marx brothers (sort of), 3 nephews of Donald Duck. (Note: More on the ducks in a future entry.) There are 3 outs in an inning, 3 strikes in an out, 3 balls in a frame of candle pin bowling. There are 3 electoral votes in both Wyoming and Vermont and 3 fingers in both the Boy Scout salute and the Serbian hand signal. On television Three’s Company, but later Three’s a crowd. The Riddle of the Sphinx involved "Answer me these questions 3." There were 3 wise men in Bethlehem and Rub a Dub Dub there were 3 men in the tub. (Note: Presumably the three men were in the tub as pat of the Abu Gharib prison scandal.) We wear glasses to see movies in 3-D, possibly about the 3 Musketeers or 3 Amigos (which we can watch while eating 3 Musketeers candy bars – A low fat candy!)

In short, Jose did not choose the 3 KEYS, the 3 KEYS chose him. Alternatively, there are 3 KEYS because two seemed like too few and four seemed like too many. Either way is good.
The next question is why Jose (almost) always refers to himself in the third person. Jose didn’t always do this, nor does he do it in his personal life, he is not a respected ex-Senator from Kansas or stolen base king who can get away with such things. In the earliest KEYS, Jose used the first person singular like everyone else and things seemed fine, but gradually he slipped into a pattern of third person usage. Oddly, Jose has no problem using the first person plural. "We," "us," "ours," they don’t phase Jose a bit.

2. In the pre-KEYS era, Jose did not particularly like writing about himself, it always seemed boastful and arrogant, and Jose supposes that this is because writing about "I" IS boastful and arrogant. Writing about Jose, however is humble and whimsical. Seriously, when Jose wrote college application essays many years ago, he struggled mightily to write about himself. Now, as Jose prepares to write essays for grad school (Note: This is provided he ever gets his act together), he hopes that all of his experience writing KEYS will help him. Jose’s only fear is that he will be unable to resist the temptation to refer to himself as Jose in his essay and will therefore help someone who’s name actually is Jose get admitted rather than himself.

3. Finally, there is this question of who is Jose Melendez? Well, it depends on your perspective. Either Jose is a mediocre to terrible relief pitcher the Red Sox acquired from the San Diego Padres for underachieving slugger Phil Plantier in 1994 and released in 1995 or he is Boston native in his mid-20s of Japanese, German and Jewish heritage who enjoys baseball, politics and wasting ridiculous amounts of time writing on the Internet, time that would be much better spent learning a trade, maybe carpentry, or applying for National Endowment for the Arts grants. Again, either way is good.

I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE KEYS.