by The Union Leader

In putting the book together, the authors - Mark Reiter and Richard Sandomir - have taken the stacked-bracket template made famous by the NCAA basketball pool and, with the help of some very talented writers, they applied that same template to everyday life.

Thus, instead of seeing North Carolina matched up against Michigan State in an NCAA final (that might have netted me a vast fortune had Michigan State actually shown up to play the game), you see pop culture match-ups such as Monopoly vs. Scrabble for "Best Board Game" - spoiler alert: Scrabble wins - or "Favorite Celebrity Mug-Shot," in which a pathetic looking James Brown prevails over a wretched looking Nick Nolte.

Closer to home, in the category of "Best State License Plate," New Hampshire is matched up against Nevada in the first round, which we won, only to be knocked out by Vermont - Vermont? - in the second round. For the record, the Maine plate with the pine cone and the black-capped chickadee was declared the ultimate winner over New Mexico, and the sad part is that Maine's lobster license plate is way better than the one that won.

As for "Best State Bird," our purple finch did well by besting Iowa's American goldfinch in the opening round, but Maryland's Baltimore oriole made us a second round casualty in the contest, which ended with Louisiana's Brown pelican falling to New Mexico's famous road runner, which, I am quite certain, will enrage Wile E. Coyote.

A central point in "The Final Four of Everything" is that you can play this game at home, and given what I do for work, naturally, I am creating my own Manchester-related brackets.

Let's start off on a happy note with "Worst Civic Disaster."

The Final Four in my version of this category - and the beauty of this exercise is that it is totally subjective - would pit The Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918 against The Great Flood of '36 and the other match-up would feature the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company's declaration of bankruptcy in 1935 vs. The Hurricane of '38.

You could certainly make the case that the Spanish Flu Epidemic was the worst health care crisis in the state's history - before it was over, 527 would die in Manchester alone - but the Great Flood of '36, according to The Manchester Union, was "the most cataclysmic natural upheaval in (New Hampshire's) recorded history," and, since I believe everything I read in the newspaper, I'm going with the event that had everybody looking for Noah's Ark on the Merrimack.

As for Amoskeag's bankruptcy vs. The Hurricane of '38, it's really no contest. The Hurricane did claim 14 lives statewide, but here in Manchester - and I concede that it must have been spectacular for those who witnessed it - it was an oddity, a one-day phenomenon, while Amoskeag's closing still resonates with those of us who call this city home.

So now we have a final pitting Amoskeag's bankruptcy against the Great Flood, and it makes for a delicious match-up since they were so intertwined.

Three months after Amoskeag filed for bankruptcy, the Merrimack River - having been fed by days of heavy rain and melting snow - ripped the McGregor Bridge from its pilings. Other bridges were badly damaged, leaving the city cut in half. It took four days for the waters to begin to recede, but not before crippling efforts to resuscitate the city's primary employer, which was Amoskeag Manufacturing.

We can look upon The Great Flood of '36 as the straw that broke the camel's back, but in my view - and remember, it's my bracket - the closing of Amoskeag reigns as the city's worst disaster. Nearly half of Manchester's 84,000 residents had jobs that were somehow tied to the textile giant, and many here are still haunted by the aftershocks from that seismic civic event.

Let's say the next category is "Best Manchester Mayor." My Final Four would pit James Weston against Josaphat T. Benoit and Eugene Reed against Frederick Smyth.

In the first instance, Mayor Benoit remains an iconic figure - a degree from the Sorbonne and seven consecutive terms will do that for you - but James Weston followed his three terms as mayor with two terms as governor of New Hampshire, plus he gave us the Weston Observatory, so it says here that Weston wins a nail-biter in triple overtime.

As for the other pairing, Eugene Reed was mayor for eight years and he served in Congress and he was a nationally renowned marksman - handy for keeping aldermen in line - but Frederick Smyth more than matched him with four terms as mayor and two terms as governor.

That gives us a titanic match-up in the final, James Weston vs. Frederick Smyth, but my admiration for the latter was made known here a short while ago, and therefore, in spite of the fact that he was a strict and somewhat pious teetotaler, in my bracket, the title of "Best Mayor" goes to the man who gave Manchester its first water and sewer systems, its first sidewalks and streetlights - which is not to overlook the still vital institute of music that bears his name - and that name is Frederick Smyth.

See how easy it is to play this game? You can do it, too.

The category could be "Best High School" (and I know you know how my bracket would come out on that one). It could be "Best Diner" - The Red Arrow vs. Belmont Hall or Chez Vachon vs. Andy's Place - or "Best Statue" or "Best Nickname in Manchester."

How about "Favorite But-Defunct Elm Street Retail Store" with Lynch's vs. Leavitt's and Pariseau's vs. McQuade's? How about "Best Sub Shop" or "Most Embarrassing Political Figure" - which would have to include Mayor Harry Spaulding, who was actually arrested at his wife's gravesite - and the list is limited only by your imagination.

Bottom line? You have to try this game.

And that's final.

John Clayton is the author of several books on Manchester and New Hampshire, including the recently released "You Know You're in New Hampshire When..." His e-mail is jclayton@unionleader.com

Copyright 2009 Union Leader Corp. All Rights Reserved
	Terms & Conditions     Privacy Copyright © 2009 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.