Misanthrope's Corner.(Brief Article)

I had never even heard of Dale Earnhardt until he crashed into eternity, but now here I am writing a column about him. What a country!

The outpouring of grief began at once, but this time there were some telling differences. The emotional pitch rose into the Diana-JFK Jr. range, but it was regional, confined mostly to the South, making it impossible for cultural optimists to say, "It brought us together." Another difference lay in the spontaneous memorial: There were no piles of teddy bears on sidewalks. This inadvertently tasteful oversight owes itself to Earnhardt's ruthless reputation as "The Intimidator" and his custom of calling anyone who was not a psychopath a "candyass." Teddy bears, like sidewalks, moved him not.

Instead of the usual static mountain of maudlin bibelots, Earnhardt's spontaneous memorial took the form of motion as some 300 of his mourners turned the Capital Beltway into a stock-car lap and circled once around D.C., a distance of 62 miles. Said one participant: "It's giving back a little of what he gave," which was precisely what the three police jurisdictions involved were worried about. In view of the number of souped-up cars in the solemn cortege, Maryland and Virginia state troopers provided a motorcycle escort to keep the speed down to 25 mph.

Held in the misty rain of a Sunday pre-dawn, it gave off a creepiness not usually found in celebrity wakes. Black, his racing color, predominated, from a row of empty black hats lined up on a dashboard like a headsman's display, to the black balloons held by sleepy children. One man drove an exact replica of Earnhardt's black death car. Another had a doll dressed as Earnhardt in his passenger seat. Another held up his $999 platinum replica of Earnhardt's car as if it were a chalice and made the somber pronouncement, "Auto racing has lost its Elvis. The king is dead." Earnhardt's Number 3, like an updated symbol of the Trinity, was on everything, and when the cortege had run its course, the trucker who organized it told the Washington Post: "We're going to try to make this an annual event to keep the memory of him alive."

It was a Black Mass choreographed by Stephen King, lacking only background music from Carmina Burana. Stock-car fans, being country- music fans, don't know about Carmina Burana, however, so the more polished among us took up the slack.

The most unexpected tribute came from the most polished man in America, MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, himself a stock-car enthusiast and a friend of Earnhardt. Williams's remarks in Time had the touching simplicity that comes from controlled writing, but he stood alone. Other eulogists went overboard.

Washington Times columnist Suzanne Fields declared that Earnhardt "did what he did because he had to" and "never forgot his roots"; extolled him for "testing the limits," and compared him to the abstract artist Jackson Pollock, the "anti-hero" who was beset by "demons," yet remained "authentic."