“Exxon.”

That’s the first time my mother was aware that I knew how to read. I was just past two years old in the back of the car coming down W.Va. Route 2 when I looked at the sign and proudly said, “Exxon.”

Gah. Why couldn’t the first time I read have been a word like “MTV” or “Pittsburgh Steelers.” Instead, it was Exxon.

But from that moment, I was a voracious reader. I couldn’t get my hands on enough books, magazines, newspapers, leaflets at the doctor’s office, church bulletins and cereal boxes. I’d read for hours on end. In the summer, while the normal kids were outside playing, I was inside trying to see if I could complete the New Martinsville Public Library Summer Reading Program in less than a week. (This, undoubtedly, is why I still have a pasty complexion and a fear of long periods of time in the sun.)

My grandfather’s wife, Grandma Bland, was a huge fan of Weekly World News. When we were kids and would spend our holidays there, I’d take a stack and put myself on the end of a couch and read them all cover to cover. I never believed in Bat Boy or that Elvis was a mechanic in Flint, Mich., or even that Bigfoot was working as a gas station attendant in Boise.

I wanted to be Dotti Primrose, though. The sharp-tongued advice columnist. I still have dreams of that.

I also became a huge fan of Ed Anger. I’m sure there was never an actual Ed Anger — more like a compendium of staff writers who each got to take a crack at a topic of the week, like the Reagan Administration.

I’m pretty sure Weekly World News doesn’t print anymore, but it is online! If you go to the Web site, you can read just as many alien and bat boy stories, but without the nostalgia of huge headlines and black and white photography.

This week’s Ed Anger is especially awesome. It’s simply headlined, “I Hate Perez Hilton.”

Me too, Ed. Me too.

(Oh, and in case someone from Weekly World News needs an Ed Anger fill in, I volunteer!)

Popularity: unranked [?]