Did anyone else pause this week to remember Episode 9 of the first season (1955) of "You'll Never Get Rich" (better known as "The Phil Silvers Show" and even better as "Sgt. Bilko.")?

That's the one where Fred Gwynne, later immortalized as TV's Herman Munster, played a character known as "The Stomach," who could eat non-stop ... as long as he was sad. Keeping him sad becomes Bilko's challenge when, as usual, he cooks up a get-rich-quick scheme: this time an eating contest against the other platoons. Or did a slightly newer media event come to mind - say, Paul Newman's quaffing of 50 hard-boiled eggs in "Cool Hand Luke?"

Or did you have a more personal recollection, maybe that time you shoved your face into a blueberry pie and tried to eat it faster than any of the other 12-year-olds at the old Metals & Controls Kiddies' Day?

Or maybe a Newport Creamery was the scene of your crime. They call a certain mega-frappe on the menu there the Awful Awful because "it's awful good and awful big" and challenge customers to drink three and get one for free. Did you try to guzzle a trio, one after the other?

Such memories - not to mention the times I raced schoolmates to see who could finish a whole pizza first at Jolly Cholly's - paid me a visit after reading Wednesday's story "It's a dog-gone record," about the feat of Tom McHenry, 50, a victim-witness advocate at Attleboro District Court, who recently set a new record at Tex Barry's Coney Island by eating 17 hot dogs, with the works, in 20 minutes. My first thought once I got to the end of the piece: I wonder if I could do that? The guy who was manager of the Newport Creamery on Central Avenue in 1967 would probably bet that I can. I could put down three Awfuls Awfuls there with little effort. On one occasion, he handed over a coupon for the free one when I had barely started my second. "I want to close early tonight," he explained.

On the other hand, the gang at the 1960 Kiddies' Day blueberry pie eating contest would bet against me. The kid who won was half my size; I wasn't even in the top three finishers.

As for hot dogs, six is my record, and by way of disclosure I must report that these were not technically hot dogs, but weiners from The Bridge New York System, a long-lamented landmark of downtown Pawtucket, where they were sold at the price of two for a quarter, and were somewhat smaller than Tex Barry's hot dogs. A friend with me downed an even dollar's worth.

It all left me wondering "what's the deal with stuffing yourself?" But I know I'm not alone in my experience as an exhibitionistic glutton. There is actually an International Federation of Competitive Eating.

Whether trenchermen like myself or McHenry would make their cut is the question. Seventeen hotdogs sounds like a lot - and, indeed, it is a lot. But the two leaders in the annual hotdog eating contest at Nathan's at the original Coney Island on July 4 each ate 59 dogs - in 10 minutes.

Summer reading

Two items have recently been received that have earned a spot in the book bag for a coming vacation.

"Absolution" promises to be a suspenseful thriller. Set in New Orleans, there's an Attleboro angle to the book. Author Susan Fleet is originally from the Jewelry City, but moved to the Big Easy a few years back to practice her trade as a trumpet player and music historian. She's also the daughter of former Attleboro Sun/Sun Chronicle reporter Frank Feeney, who covered the local crime and fire beat for decades and on occasion let Sue tag along, and even shoot a game or two of pool in the old police station. Fleet was planning a book promotion tour in the Attleboro area for August.

"Random Access" is a collection of "some poems and small prose by an old soldier," Col. William F. Long Jr., whom we met some years ago when he was the director of the Newport Tennis Hall of Fame. He was an officer with airborne divisions in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and in retirement has committed himself to promoting global dialogue - through the Newport Institute in Rhode Island and similar organizations in Florida, where he now resides - as the road to peace. Much wisdom, tempered by real-life experience, lies between the covers of his new book.

MARK FLANAGAN is Opinion Page editor of The Sun Chronicle. Contact him at 508-236-0335 or at opinion@thesunchronicle.com.