Jim Cramer's Pool

This column was originally published on Street Insight on Dec. 21 at 9:35 a.m. EST. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com and RealMoney.com readers. For more information about subscribing to Street Insight, please click here.

By next week, I will have completed five years on The Edge (six years if you include my RealMoolah gig). That's a long time.

I actually started out writing on TheStreet.com back in the late 1990s when I penned The Contrarian column. At that time, the site was a new concept and a real-time experiment that struggled in its infancy, but it began to flourish even as the economy suffered in 2001.

Since I started writing on a consistent basis six years ago, we have not only dealt with the market's ups and downs, but we have shared some of life's experiences together -- through visits, emails, telephone conversations and other personal correspondences. Happily, over the last six years, I have met numerous new friends (virtually and in person) from my experience as a member of TheStreet.com community.

We have all experienced some terribly emotional times, most notably the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the loss of contributor Bill "Budman" Meehan. Over time, as painful as that period was, we recovered. And life went on.

As I mention annually, a few paragraphs could not possibly communicate the warm feelings I have about many of my acquired relationships -- with subscribers, with contributors, with editors and with the management of TheStreet.com.

Two years ago I initiated something different in order to express my sincere thanks and wish everyone a wonderful holiday season in my own special way. This morning, as I now do on an annual basis, I offer you the following (updated) parody of Dr. Seuss' McElligot's Pool.

This is my Christmas and Chanukah present to all of you, and it honors someone who has had a remarkable encore performance in 2006 -- Jim "El Capitan" Cramer. In 2006, we saw the continued enormous success of Cramerica. Jim hit, for the second consecutive year, 70 homeruns in 2006 with his book Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World and batted .400 with his newest book, Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich, as he continued to capture investors' attention with his enormously popular CNBC show "Mad Money."

Jim is the lifeblood of TheStreet.com and its sister sites, RealMoolah and Street Insight.

In a brief year and a half, the man who doesn't want to make friends but does want to make you money has introduced the words "skidaddy" and "booyah" and made them part of the investment world's vernacular. He has graced the cover of national magazines and has become a household name.

Over the past several years, in numerous emails, telephone calls and one-on-one meetings (on and off the set!), I have learned to appreciate Jim as an investment professional and, more importantly, as a man. Invariably, the weekend after I publish this tribute to Jim, he tells me that he has read this poem to his two daughters at bedtime -- which makes me very happy and makes my gig on Street Insight all worthwhile.

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