Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 5, 1993                   TAG: 9308040043
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Lon Wagner
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T BUY ALL THAT STUFF ABOUT MEN

The other day I got a mailing from some folks trying to get me to sign up for their magazine.

"Finally, there's a new men's magazine for the kind of man you are," read the first line. Already, they were zeroing in on me. They knew I was a man.

The solicitation continued, I modestly admit, describing the "kind of man" I am to a T:

"Successful. Confident. Active. And ready to take on more."

"Hey, that's me," I thought, lying on my couch. "Better sign up for this magazine."

Pretty good strategy, wouldn't you say? Pick out all the men in the country who have ever subscribed to a magazine and flatter the heck out of them.

This crow-about-your-maleness trend has been under way for a couple of years and doesn't show any sign of letting up. I base this upon extensive, scientific data gathering and media observation, including the aforementioned solicitation for the Men's Journal and the recent appearance of the cleverly titled The Men's Column in this paper.

I don't put a whole lot of stock in either of these attempts to represent the male population.

A female friend implored me not to publicly make fun of The Men's Column guy, who writes about men in an obvious effort to show women that men are more like women than they are like men.

"People will think you're an insensitive slob," she said. Not really. I just don't know a whole lot of - no, make that "any" - men who talk about the stuff he writes about. I did get into a debate at a bar the other day about one of his columns, but a woman brought up the subject, which pretty much proves my point.

Most men I know are fairly straightforward. They don't really have a lot of time to think about hang-gliding off Mount Everest (The Men's Journal); they don't really want to read a column about the difficulty of taking a girlfriend to get an abortion (The Men's Column).

I can demonstrate this by relating a phone call from a friend from college. Marty called from Philadelphia and informed me, "Me and Robyn had a kid."

It seems Robyn had much difficulty with childbirth and had to be rushed across the city to a hospital experienced in treacherous births. There were a couple hours of painstaking worry about both mother and baby.

But everything worked out. Sam Isaac Sheridan was born. As Marty dryly explained, "We just picked the name at random, because we didn't have any dead relatives we liked to name him after." (Jewish tradition is to name a baby after a deceased, revered relative.)

"So what's new with you," Marty then asked.

Let's see. I have to come up with something really good after this story. Something momentous. A story of creation, life and biological development to equal or better this impressive, heart-stopping tale.

"Well, I make my own beer now," I said, feeling humbled.

"Really?!" he said. "Great."

Then I explained the whole thing, about how the first batch was difficult, but how my beer-making partner and I rushed the steaming concoction across the kitchen to the fermentation container, how there were a couple hours of painstaking worry after we poured the yeast in.

But everything worked out.

Last month, Marty, Robyn, young Sam and two other friends came to Roanoke for the weekend.

Marty raved about my dark beer.

Robyn let me hold young Sam. I've never liked babies much, but when it's the child of a guy you knew in college when he was wearing purple designer jeans . . . it kind of hits home.

That's what men talk about. Kids and beer. We're not tough to figure out.

Lon Wagner covers Franklin County