I Sign Autographs

Today I left work for a bit to get some lunch down at McDonald’s (doing my part for the nation’s “health care crisis) and while standing in line a nice man named Steve came up to me and asked if my name was Rob Port. A bit confused, I answered in the affirmative at which point he turned and walked back to his table to retrieve the latest issue of the Dakota Beacon (a North Dakota-centric political magazine I write for).
Steve promptly flipped the magazine open to my column and asked me if I signed it. I was…taken back. And slightly embarrassed. I don’t think I’ve accomplished anything making me worthy of this kind of treatment, but I obliged with my autograph regardless.
What really interested me, however, was that Steve isn’t actually a North Dakotan. He actually lives in Duluth Minnesota, and said that he was put onto this blog via a friend in South Dakota. He learned of the Beacon through my references to it in posts and makes a point of picking it up whenever he comes through the state.
My point in posting on this exchange is two-fold:
First, I wanted to invoke the humorous and rather absurd image of yours truly standing in line at McDonald’s and signing an autograph so that you could all laugh at me. I can only imagine what the other people in the restaurant where thinking. “Who the heck is this guy?”
Second, and a bit more seriously, it’s rather gratifying to know that things like blogs and the Dakota Beacon are breaking through and actually reaching people. Though I must say that I never planned on becoming any sort of a public figure.