Tuesdays with Hurdy: An aquatics wonder!

Tuesdays with Hurdy is a weekly exercise allowing Hurdy Chadwick to ponder issues of importance to the general Rooting public. Today's installment finds Hurdy gazing at the wondrous physicality of American aquatics champ Michael "Duckfoot" Phelps.

Dear friends,

"Laps to go before I sleep! Laps to go before I sleep!"

Such must be the night-time mantra of Michael "Duckfoot" Phelps, the prodigiously talented aquatics champion. The Duckfoot moniker, of course, references his enormous paddle-like feet, which so closely resemble those of a common mallard. Ol' Duckfoot sure looks at home in that water, and his fellow Olympians must glare with envy at his American splendor cutting through the swimming-pool venue in these quadrennial Olympic matches.

But my favorite part of Ol' Duckfoot is his good-natured countenance, which shines brightly from his dearly lopsided head from morning 'til night. For a youth to have such command over aquatics events from Siam to Seattle yet still possess child-like enthusiasm is enough to give one cause to brush away the doldrums and the ill-temper caused by the workaday world.

Indeed, Ol' Duckfoot is certainly the human form of a dram of Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey. I am confident that one look at the youthful Phelps is enough to settle indigestion and cure distemper altogether. With that power, one must wonder whether some enterprising young Chinese lad isn't bottling all the sweat from Ol' Duckfoot's workout garb, bottling it in lantern glass and marketing it as an old Chinois remedy passed down through the generations!

If that's the case, then sign me up! I'll take two, and charge it to my home account, Mr. Wang!

Yours in hurling and twirling,
Hurdy Chadwick
Westbrook, Me.