THE ROUND MAN OF REBOUND

One of my all-time favorite nicknames was penned on Sir Charles while he played basketball at Auburn. Another was a Harrisburg, IL, player whom they dubbed The Elegant Elephant. Both were heavy men playing a skinny man's sport.

Barkley has never been one of my favorites. He is extremely popular in the valley where he starred on some Suns' teams. In fact some people have told me he lived in our neighborhood back then. I need to do some more research to confirm that.

But what he said about dropping 40 pounds or so recently (I wonder if recently in that context could stand as a double adverb; he said it recently and he dropped the weight recently as well). His comment when asked how he did it: "It was easy. If it tasted good, I spit it out."

It echoed, in a way, Kate Moss' philosophy, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

I sure wish I could follow either. If not, then I'll be searching for a moniker-- maybe combining the two. I'll be The Round Elephant Mound, or REM for short.