Sharon Randall: The only somebody worth being is somebody you like

Did you happen to see the story about a man in Whiskey Flats, Texas, who recently bested his own world record by increasing -- from a measly 8 to a whopping 9 -- the number of live rattlesnakes that he could fit all at once in his mouth?

According to the story, when asked whatever possessed him to put nine live rattlers into his mouth, Jackie Bibby -- who has somehow managed to survive to be 52 years old -- said, "I'm doing it for the prestige, the glory and the attention."

Let's hope so. It's not likely to help him attract women.

Amazing, isn't it, the things some people will do to try to stand out from the herd?

My mother was forever wanting to be somebody.

The first time I heard her say that, I told her flat out that she didn't need to be somebody; she was my mother.

"That's different," she said. "If you want to be somebody, you've got to make something of yourself or you'll never amount to hill of beans."

I wasn't sure exactly what a hill of beans might be, let alone if I wanted to amount to one. But my mother seemed to know it, and tried her best to be it.

I guess if you grow up, as she did, wedged somewhere in the middle of eight sisters, it can be a bit of a trick to feel special. And running off to get married at 15 didn't do much to help.

When I was little, she and her sisters sang for the radio. It was just a local station, only one song once a week, and yet everybody agreed it was a shot at being somebody.

But the studio was so small it could hold only four of the nine sisters, so they fought over who would sing, what to sing and even what to wear, which made no sense, being it was radio.

Eventually they gave up trying to be somebody and went back to being sisters, wives and mothers, daughters and friends.

Personally, I was glad. I thought they sounded pretty good on the radio, but I liked them a lot better on the porch.

After her brief career in radio, my mother put all her hopes for being somebody into the dream of owning a doughnut shop.

She talked about it for years. She'd say, as soon as she could save enough money, she was going to open up a place with a drive-thru window and turn out the best doughnuts people had ever put in their mouths. Then she'd be somebody for sure.

Doughnuts, to me, sounded a lot more promising than radio. I had no doubt she could make a go of it, if only she had the money -- which she never did.

They say the apple never falls far from the tree. If my mother was an apple, I'm an orange.

Or maybe a banana.

But I, too, grew up wanting to be somebody -- somebody that she'd be proud of. I wanted to do big important things, make the world a better place and wear a whole lot of lipstick.

I wanted to act like Eleanor Roosevelt, look like Jackie Kennedy and sing like Aretha Franklin.

Some days, I still want to do all that and more.

Other days, I just want to sit on the porch in a baggy pair of sweats and sing off-key.

But there is one thing that I have learned, and have tried to teach my children.

You can sing for the radio. You can fry the world's finest doughnuts. You can set a record for putting rattlers in your mouth. You can make a ton of money and wield all sorts of power.

Success can get you noticed, but it will never make you somebody.

In the end what really matters is how you treat people and how well you sleep at night.

The only somebody worth being is true to yourself.

Sharon Randall is the author of "Birdbaths and Paper Cranes."