What is it about the "Herman Melville" award that brings me up short every time I read it on the right side of the screen?

Do you mean “what does Herman Melville mean?” or “what does this award do?”

No. I know who he is and what the award is about. But there’s something about “Herman Melville Award” that just bumps around in my head. It’s like one of those songs that you don’t particularly care for but you wind up humming it around the house. I drug myself home at 3 AM Friday morning, and there on the hood of my neighbor’s shiny black Mercedes was a big raccoon. Just sitting there, as calm as death, square in the middle of the hood. I went into the house, and rushed upstairs to get the camera. The wife was in pajamas flopped in the big leather armchair under blankets watching an episode of “Brideshead Revisited”, She’s never up at that time of the morning, another sign of a world gone mad. I grabbed the camera and rushed to the window, wondering whether there would be enough light. The wife, hopped out of the chair and was beside me in a flash to see whatever excitement had me agitated. I pulled up the blinds, and looked down on the Mercedes and it’s vacant coonless hood. Halfway up the block, ambling along in the middle of the street, a raccoon, taking it’s time, no big hurry. The wife asked “All this excitement over a raccoon?” My answer was “Herman Melville” She looked at me like a Collie regarding a chew toy, and murmured “You know I can have you committed.”

No less quirky than my favorite, “Wayne Greet-zky”? (It’s = it is.)