A stunning moment of introspection for Big Jim


March 21, 2000

The last few weeks have been tough. One issue has been weighing heavily on my mind, and I have been giving that issue some serious thought and introspection.

Actually, this is an issue that's been on my mind for several years now. It took my a while to admit to myself that I was like this. I mean, it's not easy. But after a while, all the whispering, the pointing, the funny looks from people--they finally got to me. There were also some harsh insults and some embarrassing incidents which made me realize I couldn't hide who I was. After quite a bit of time, some close friends and family members finally gathered up the courage to talk to me, and express their feelings to me that they sensed I was different.

Even after I accepted this difference for myself, and even after certain friends and family members said they loved me no matter what, it was still a hard topic to deal with. It's something I would simply rather not discuss. But others beyond my circle of loved ones are starting to notice this difference, too. Thus, I have decided, after much thought that I have to acknowledge this. for once and all. Please understand that it is not easy for me to say this, but here I go:

I, Jimmy Boegle, look quite a bit like Janet Reno.

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I'll never forget that first time, way back in high school, that I first saw her picture. We all knew that she was not the most attractive dame. She was the butt of many jokes about how she looked like a man with a bad haircut.

It was my freshman year in college that I started to realize we had some facial similarities. I remember one incident very clearly. I was sitting in my dorm room reading the San Jose Mercury News. I had the front section opened up and was holding it in front of me. On the front page, there was a picture of Janet, scowling and looking like she wanted to smack someone. I, too, was scowling, because I was reading about how Calvin and Hobbes was coming to an end.

My roommate, Sean, looked over at me reading the paper. Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw him look at my face, then the paper, then my face again.

"Huh!" Sean said.

"What?" I asked. "Is there a problem?"

Sean just looked at me, and slowly backed out into the hallway. "Oh, no. It's nothing," he said, taking another long look at me. He then looked at the paper again, before walking off slowly.

This incident stuck in my head, but I did not fully confront the issue until Thanksgiving of my junior year. My uncle Eddie, who is in the Army, was home; he hadn't seen me for a while. We were chatting and looking at a college yearbook. He ran across the group picture of the college newspaper staff; I stood in the back row of the photo. I wasn't smiling for some reason. My hair was cut short with a distinct part, and my glasses were crooked. Looking at that photo, he had a sudden realization.

"Jimmy, you look exactly like Janet Reno"

Some family members gasped; others just stared. You could have heard a pin drop, except for the fact that my father, oblivious to the whole incident, was asleep and snoring on the couch.

Since that fateful Thanksgiving, I've known my day of reckoning with the Janet Reno issue was going to come -- it was just a matter of time. It has been on my mind quite a bit lately -- but it was not until a phone call last week that I realized that the day of reckoning was close.

A very nice man who reads this column -- a retired teacher -- called me to say that he enjoyed last week's column, in which I noted that George W. Bush has an uncanny resemblance to Alfred E. Newman. (I am not making this phone call up.)

However, the caller did not stop at the compliment.

"But you know that you look an awful lot like Janet Reno," he said.

He'd caught me. I mean, I couldn't lie. For crying out loud, mug shots of me are in two newspapers every week around these parts. At that point, I realized I had to step forward and come out as Janet Reno look-alike. And now, I have.

Whew. That's such a weight off my shoulders. And I can take solace in one fact:

Janet Reno is homely, as a woman. But for as a guy, she's actually fairly attractive.

Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who is still in denial that he's a buzz cut, a new pair of glasses and 20 pounds away from looking like Drew Carey. His column (Jimmy's, not Drew Carey's) appears here Tuesdays, and an archive of Jimmy's past columns can be found at www.geocities.com/jiboegle/columns.html.

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